A turn of the page
by gemjam
Summary: Jack and Boone contemplate parenthood. Continues the 'Ever After' timeline. Completed.
1. Chapter 1

"Don't you think it's a little weird?"

Jack looked up from clearing away the breakfast dishes. "Don't I think what's a little weird?" he asked.

"Y'know," Boone continued. "The fact that she wants to sell us her baby."

Jack tried not to get annoyed and start a lecture. It wouldn't have any affect anyway. Boone would just look all glazed over while he waited for Jack to finish and then he'd start talking about how he needed to sand down the banister.

"She's not selling us her baby," he replied, trying to sound level. "She's offering to have a baby for us."

"Yeah, and sell it to us," Boone repeated.

"Look, we don't have to do this," Jack told him. "Even if we meet her, we still don't have to do it."

"I'm not saying that," Boone explained. "I just think it's a little weird that she sells babies."

"It's not like it's her profession." It was really far too early in the morning for this.

"You don't think it's even a little bit strange?" Boone asked him.

"I think it's very thoughtful of her," Jack replied.

"Yeah," Boone commented. "She sure gets paid a lot for being thoughtful."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

They pulled up outside the rather stereotypical suburban house and Jack killed the engine.

Boone looked around. "Well, this place is thoroughly middle of the road."

"Stop being such a snob," Jack told him.

Boone turned to face him. "I wasn't being a snob," Boone pointed out. "I'm not talking about money. I just mean this whole area looks so bland. The houses all look the same. I like a little character is all."

"Well, our place certainly has plenty of that," Jack remarked. "So, you ready?"

"Sure," Boone replied, sounding rather noncommittal.

They both climbed out of the car and headed up to the front door. Jack rang the doorbell and seconds later a woman of around thirty answered the door.

"You must be Jack and Boone, right?" she asked. Jack nodded. "I'm Tayla, come on in." She ushered them into a bright room full of toys. "Excuse the mess, the kids rule this place."

"You've got two, right?" Jack asked.

"Yep, Gracie and Luke," she gestured towards the window which looked out over the backyard.

Jack saw two children playing on the swing set. "They look great."

"They're a handful but they're worth it," she commented. "Anyway, sit down, can I get you guys something to drink?"

"Sure, I'll have a soda," Boone replied.

"Yeah, same, thanks," Jack requested.

"Coming up," Tayla said as she headed out of the room.

Jack and Boone sat down on the sofa and looked around the room. Boone leaned into Jack and said quietly, "Do we have to have toys everywhere like this?"

Jack looked at him. "What?"

"There's toys everywhere. Do we have to do that?" he asked. "It's just that, y'know, I worked really hard on that house, I don't want to have toys everywhere. So we could put them away, right? We could do that?"

God, Boone was adorable. And a little bit insane. And also slightly grating. But adorable usually won over. "Yes, we can put the toys away, Boone."

This seemed to make Boone happy as he nodded a little and leaned back on the sofa. Tayla re-entered with the sodas and handed them over. She sat down across from them. "So, which one of you's the doctor?" she asked.

"That's me," Jack replied. "I'm Jack. This is my partner, Boone."

"And by partner he means boyfriend," Boone added. "Partner makes it sound like we sell double glazing together."

"How long have you guys been together?"

"Just passed the three year mark," Jack replied. "We figured this might be what we wanted to do to mark the occasion, so to speak."

Tayla nodded a little. "Sounds good."

"You said you'd done this before, right?" Boone cut in.

"I've acted as a surrogate once before, yes," Tayla replied.

"So, erm..." Boone seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "But, don't you have a husband?"

"Yes," she replied, not quite sure where this was going. And neither was Jack which was starting to worry him. He willed Boone not to ask anything stupid. But Boone rarely picked up on these things.

"Doesn't he mind?"

"Why would he mind?" she asked simply.

"Well, you're having someone else's baby," Boone stated.

"Yes, but it's not like infidelity. The thing is, I love my children more than anything in the world and I couldn't imagine my life without them. But for now, two's enough for me. And in the meantime, I have all these eggs that are just going to waste. And I really hate the thought of that, especially when there are so many couples out there that, for whatever reason, can't have children of their own. So I want to help them. And my husband understands that," she explained.

Jack was a little envious of her. She had this power to bear children, and to Jack that had always been a huge deal. Ever since Sarah had gotten pregnant after those five months of trying he'd really seen women in a new light. And not as baby machines as Sarah had once claimed in a post-miscarriage fight, but as something special. And Jack was fairly sure that not many women were willing to share this gift with people other than their husbands.

"My sister had a baby," Boone said, apparently out of nowhere. Or maybe Jack had zoned out.

"How old?" Tayla asked.

"She's nearly four months," Boone replied. "She's really cute. And so well behaved it's unreal. They've got this whole routine that they stick to and this baby goes along with it. Well, most of the time. Her dad used to be in the army, though. And her mom's, well... No, I think it's mainly her dad."

Sayid and Shannon had managed to settle Zara into a routine fairly early on. She was by no means a perfect kid, and she definitely cried when she wanted something, but for a four month old baby they didn't know how lucky they were. And Boone and Zara had gotten on great. And Jack was fairly sure that was a rather huge factor in Boone's decision that maybe he did want to be a daddy after all. Boone didn't really understand kids all that much but he could see the attraction.

"She sounds great," Tayla commented.

"Yeah," Boone nodded.

"So now you guys want to start your own family, right?" she asked.

"We've been thinking about it, yeah," Boone replied. "We moved into this new house six months ago and we've been doing a lot of work on it but we're nearing the end and we figured the only thing missing in this family home is a family."

Not exactly the way they'd talked about it, Jack thought. Boone had never mentioned that anything was missing from their home. Well, except various fixtures and fittings. And Boone had never referred to the house as a 'family home' before. It did have a nice ring to it though.

"Well, hopefully that's something I can help you out with," Tayla said with a smile.

They met Tayla's husband and children, who all seemed amazingly understanding about the whole thing, and talked about some of the details of what might happen if they decided to go ahead with this. They all waved Jack and Boone off as they headed back to the car. Jack thought it went well. He just hoped Boone was feeling as positive as he was. When they were in the car he turned to look at him.

"So," Jack began. "What are you thinking?"

"She seems nice," Boone replied simply.

Jack wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but he figured it was a start. He started up the engine. 


	2. Chapter 2

Babies. That's all Boone had been thinking about for the past two days. He was attempting to come to some kind of decision. Which was funny because he figured he already came to that decision. That was the whole reason they went to visit Tayla in the first place. But apparently he was wrong because he still found himself thinking about it. And he knew that he should really be paying less attention to non-existent babies and more attention to the shelves he was attempting to put up or they were going to end up all crooked. Plus, Jack had told him not to use the drill when he wasn't concentrating Like he was an idiot or something. What did he think he was going to do? Probably best not to answer that.

The doorbell rang. Boone put down what he was doing and went to answer it. He opened the door to reveal Shannon who was carrying Zara in her car seat.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she replied. "I was bored so I figured I'd come see you seeing as you're a fellow housewife."

Boone gave her a look. He hated it when she did this. "I am not a housewife."

She laughed a little. "Of course you are. Jack goes out to work and you stay here all day and look after the house. You're a housewife."

Boone was going to come up with some kind of retort but he thought better of it. Getting into an argument with Shannon seemed too much like hard work right now. And he was pretty sure she was gonna win which he really wasn't in the mood for.

"You wanna come in?" he asked, moving slightly out of the way.

She smiled at him and walked past. Boone followed her through to the living room where she put Zara down on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa.

"You mind if I take her out?" Boone asked, walking over to Zara.

"Knock yourself out," she replied, sitting back on the sofa.

Boone leaning over Zara as he started to undo her safety straps. "Hey, sweetie," he cooed. "How are you today, huh?" He lifted her out of the car seat and placed her on his hip, rocking her slightly. "You just get bigger every time I see you, don't you?"

"Tell me about it," Shannon said. "She's not so easy to lug around all the time."

"Oh, but she's so cute," Boone replied, more to Zara than Shannon.

"Yeah, wait 'til you've got one of your own," Shannon warned. "You can't just hand them back when you're done playing."

Boone looked over at Shannon. "Actually, me and Jack have been talking about that," he began. He had decided not to talk to anyone about it until he and Jack had made a definite decision but he was having a hard time making said decision and Shannon was a mother so maybe she could give him some advice. But then he remembered that Shannon got pregnant because they were living on an island that had long since run out of any protection and it was pretty much take the risk or take up celibacy.

Shannon looked up, intrigued. "Really?"

"Yeah," he said, not sure where he was really going with this. "I know Jack wants kids and I think I kinda do so, y'know."

"Cool."

"Actually, we went to see a surrogate a couple of days ago," Boone admitted.

Now Shannon looked really interested. "You did?" she asked. "So you guys are serious about this? You're really gonna do it?"

"Well, we don't know yet," Boone replied. "We're still deciding."

"If you decide 'yes' you better get this house sorted out," she told him.

Boone looked around his lovingly renovated home. It was a hell of a lot of hard work getting it to look as good as it did and he tended to take any slightly negative comment very personally. Which he should perhaps be worried about but he was choosing not to be.

"What's wrong with my house?" he asked. It came out more wounded than he intended.

"You need to baby proof it and stuff," she commented.

"Hey, this place is safe for kids, what are you talking about?"

"Right, I'll just let Zara go play with those drill bits, shall I?" Shannon asked him, clearly laced with sarcasm.

"Well they wouldn't be there, would they?" he replied. "And anyway, four month old babies don't even play with things."

Shannon laughed. "God, you are so clueless, Boone," she commented. "How did you even get this far in life?"

Boone looked at Zara. "What does she play with?"

"Mostly my hair and earrings," she replied dryly. "And don't let her size fool you, she's got a mean grip."

Boone smiled at Zara. "Gonna grow up to be a hair-puller like your mommy?"

"I am not a hair puller," Shannon said, sounding a little annoyed.

Boone didn't bother to reply. He wasn't a housewife so she deserved it. Just because Jack was a doctor and he, strictly speaking, had no profession and spent all day in the house, that didn't make him a housewife. Even though he guessed, in the strictest sense, he probably was Jack's wife. Or husband. He still wasn't sure how that worked. Anyway, he was pretty sure that, if they did go ahead with this parenthood idea, he'd be the one left holding to baby, so to speak, while Jack went off to the hospital. Which is why Boone had to be sure before he gave this whole plan the go ahead. If he thought Jack would be main carer of the baby, or even if they were taking equal parts, he'd say 'yes' to Jack in a second. But if he had to spend all day with this baby, he had to make sure that he wanted it.

"Does she ever drive you mad?" Boone asked, gazing at Zara.

"You asking me or her?" Shannon questioned.

Boone looked at her. "If I was asking her I'm sure she'd say yes in an instant," he quipped.

Shannon gave him a look. "Not really," she replied. "I mean, there's times when I'm on my own with her and she won't shut up and I'm just at my wits end. But then I'll finally get her to sleep and I'll just look at her, so peaceful, so beautiful, and I forgive her of everything in a second."

Boone thought about her answer. "Strictly speaking that was a yes, though, right?"

Shannon smiled. "Right now I can't remember the last time I was mad at her, even though it was probably only a couple of hours ago," she replied. "I mean, when you're in the moment it kind of sucks, but, I don't know, overall, I guess it's kinda great being a parent."

Boone looked back at Zara. She was very, very cute. But, like Shannon said, it's different when you can't hand them back when you're done. He wasn't sure if he could picture looking after a baby all day, everyday. Now that the work in the house was getting finished he knew he'd have to do something with his time though. He really couldn't stand the thought of general unemployment again, he was bored out of his brain sitting around Sabrina's house all that time after the rescue. Plus, he was pretty sure that he really would be a housewife in that case. A bored, bored housewife. Which wasn't exactly how he saw his future. His chosen occupation was to 'make a house a home', that was his mission statement. He guessed that children would come under that heading. And, like he told Tayla, their family home was missing a family. But he was also aware of the fact that he'd said that slightly for effect.

"If you have to think about it so much, maybe it's not for you, Boone," Shannon suggested, bringing him out of his daydream.

He looked back over at her. "Tell me the truth," he requested. "If you weren't on that island. Or if you'd had some protection. Basically, if you'd had the choice, would you have gotten pregnant when you did?"

Shannon considered the question, which Boone appreciated. The last thing he wanted was some fairy tale answer or crap about how sometimes you don't know what you want until you get it.

"No," Shannon replied after a long pause. "I didn't want a baby. I'd never thought about having a baby. I don't like kids. Remember that stupid French brat? Nightmare. And she wasn't planned. It's not even like I thought about it that much. I was trying not to think about it. Whenever I was with Sayid I just pushed it to the back of my mind. I told myself that some couples try for years to get pregnant so the percentages probably weren't really that high." She paused. Boone could tell that island memories were coming back to her. "Then I missed my period. And I wasn't very happy about it. And I didn't tell Sayid. I waited until I missed three periods before I mentioned it to anybody. It was Jack. I..." she stopped, looking pained. Boone never knew she'd spoken to Jack about it. He always figured it was Sayid she told first. Why wouldn't she? "I asked him for an abortion," Shannon rushed out, looking incredibly guilty. Boone didn't know what to say. "He said he couldn't. He said even if he wanted to he couldn't do it. Not in the jungle. Not with what we had. Not without doing me in too." She stopped again, tears threatening in her eyes.

Boone put Zara down in the car seat and sat down next to Shannon. "Shan, why didn't you ever say anything?"

She looked at him levelly. "I wanted to kill my baby," she said. "It's not the kind of thing you bring up over lunch."

"But, I mean, when you came to me, when you told me, you were really excited," Boone stated, getting a little lost. He guessed Zara wasn't planned but he never knew Shannon actually didn't want her. She never gave that impression. "What changed things?" he asked.

"Sayid," she said simply. "Sayid wanted it. He got all excited. The look on his face was just amazing. And I did that. With this thing that was growing inside of me, I did that. He really wanted it. Wanted her. And I guess that made me want her too."

Shannon was looking fondly at Zara now and Boone could tell how much she loved her. So maybe there wasn't some thing that you were born with that determined if you were going to be a good parent or how much you'd love your kid when they came along. Maybe it just happens. And maybe there's more factors than that. After all, it's not just you and some kid. It's you and your partner and your kid. It's family.

Shannon turned to look at Boone. "I think you should go for it."

Boone smiled at her. 


	3. Chapter 3

These were the kind of evenings Jack liked. A couple of glasses of wine in him, something brainless on TV, laying on the sofa with Boone half on top of him in a heap. Boone currently looked as though he were falling asleep, his eyes half closed, making cute little noises every so often. Cute little noises that sounded rather similar to the cute little noises that Boone made during sex. And Jack's mind was going somewhere all together different. 

"Shannon came round with Zara today," Boone said, glancing up at Jack.

Jack looked down at him. "Yeah?"

"Uh-huh," Boone replied.

Jack wondered why he bothered to bring it up, he clearly wasn't in the mood for a conversation. Which was a shame because Jack really wanted to talk to him. But he was being careful not to push the issue of babies onto Boone. The last thing he needed was his boyfriend freaking out on him. Probably best just to leave that stone unturned. That didn't change the fact that he was dying to hear what Boone had to say about the whole thing. Or maybe not, he reasoned, depending on what the answer was.

"What did she want?" he asked Boone.

"Nothing really," Boone slurred.

Yep, he'd be asleep within about ten minutes, Jack guessed. Which meant it probably wasn't the best time to bring up life altering questions.

"I told her about Tayla," Boone announced, sounding slightly clearer.

Jack looked down, interested. "And what did she say?"

Boone made a small shrugging movement. He slid his hand slightly under Jack's T-shirt and started to lightly rub his hip, just above the waistband. Well, that was a little distracting.

"So you told her," Jack continued, attempting to stay focused. Boone brought it up so he was allowed to ask, he reasoned. "That mean you're serious about it?"

Boone hooked his thumb on the outside of Jack's T-shirt and ran his hand up Jack's chest, taking the shirt with him. He shifted his weight a little and kissed a line down Jack's side. Soft, lazy, teasing, almost there kisses. Which kind of annoyed Jack because Boone was clearly just trying to get out of answering. He moved his trail of kisses along Jack's belly to his naval and started to follow his happy trail down. He was interrupted by Jack's waistband and Jack had half a mind to rip his pants off but he knew that Boone wasn't trying to be a good boyfriend, he was trying to get out of talking, and he was fairly sure Sabrina would have taught him to never talk with his mouth full.

Jack shifted and reached down to pull Boone's face up. "Can you stop that a minute?" he requested. Which felt kind of wrong because that would actually be a very nice way to end the evening. "I just wanna talk to you a sec," he explained, hoping he conveyed the fact that he fully intended to pick this up again afterwards.

Boone looked a little, not upset, inconvenienced, maybe. But he moved up so he was more at eye level with Jack.

"What?" he asked.

"Why did you tell Shannon about Tayla?"

Boone leaned his head into Jack's neck, stroking behind his ear with a finger. "Dunno," he mumbled.

Jack was determined to stay focused. Even though that did feel very nice. But he was smarter than Boone and he was going to damn well show it.

"Boone?" he asked levelly.

Boone looked up at him, his face impartial. He then smiled and leaned up, capturing Jack's mouth with his. And Jack kissed back. He was still smarter than Boone though. Definitely.

But then Boone was the one that pulled away. "I thought she could help me," he said, no more than an inch away from Jack's lips.

Jack was lost. He was fairly sure he asked a question but he wasn't quite sure what it was. And then Boone kissed him again. Stupid Boone. It was just a brief kiss though and he pulled away again, but not too far.

"Shannon," Boone elaborated, picking up on the fact that Jack had lost the thread somewhere along the way. He placed another small kiss on Jack's mouth before adding, "Cos she's a mom."

Another kiss.

"Did she help?" Jack asked.

Kiss.

"I think so."

Kiss.

"So what did she say?"

Kiss.

"Just some stuff."

Kiss.

"So did you decide something?"

Kiss.

"Maybe."

Kiss.

"What?"

Kiss.

"I think I want Tayla..." Kiss. "...To have our baby."

Kiss.

And, okay, this kissing thing was getting a little distracting now. Jack pulled away to look at Boone. He wanted to see his face, wanted to see if he was serious, wanted to make sure he'd really thought about this.

"I thought that's what you wanted," Boone said, looking a little unsure of himself all of a sudden.

"Yeah," Jack replied, still not 100 per cent sure what to make of it. "It's what I want," he continued. "I just wasn't sure it was what you wanted."

Boone smiled a little. "Yeah, me either," he admitted. "But I think it would be kinda cool. And I know it's a whole lot of hard work and we're gonna have to make a lot of compromises and our relationships probably gonna take a hit and all that but... I think about all that and I still think it's gotta be worth it, right?"

"Kids aren't easy," Jack pointed out.

"Yeah, Shannon keeps telling me that," Boone replied. "Still, everyone I ever spoke to said it's worth it. And if I can take that from Shannon I can take it from anyone. I mean, she's not exactly the most maternal person I've ever met."

Jack knew all too well that that was true. And Boone sounded like this was what he wanted and Jack knew from experience that when Boone put his mind to something, he saw it through to the end. So he wasn't perfect at everything, he always gave it his best shot and that was something that Jack admired, even if he didn't say it quite as much as he probably should. So if Boone said he wanted to be a father, Jack should accept that.

"They're messy," he found himself warning Boone.

"I know," Boone replied with a slightly condescending smile.

"You're gonna be tidying up a whole lot," Jack pointed out. "When you're not changing diapers and mixing formula and rocking them to sleep."

"I know all that," Boone said. Did he sound bored?

"And our sex life is gonna decline. Probably quite drastically at first."

"Yeah, Shannon warned me about that one too," Boone nodded.

"And they're really loud," Jack continued.

Boone laughed a little. "Are you _trying_ to put me off?" he asked.

Jack looked at him. "I'm not sure," he admitted.

Boone smiled at him and shook his head a little. "Jack, I wanna have a baby. With you. And Tayla I guess," he informed him. "I'm supposed to be making your dreams come true here, why can't you accept that?"

"I guess that's kind of the problem," Jack admitted. "Someone offers to make your dreams come true, you kinda figure there's a catch."

"No catch," Boone assured him. "Me, you, a baby and no sex life, that's what I'm offering you."

Jack smiled at him. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"So we should ring Tayla tomorrow I guess, right?"

"Yeah," Jack replied, a little distant.

Boone settled down again, placing his head back on Jack's shoulder and turning his attention back to the TV. Jack was a little upset that he wasn't trying anything anymore. So all those kisses really were just a distraction. Which was a little weird considering Boone had just told him exactly what he'd wanted to hear so he couldn't imagine what the point of drawing it out like that was.

But those kisses had got Jack in the mood and now he was feeling a little disappointed. He reached his arm down to Boone's lower back and started rubbing little circles, trying to get Boone's attention. Boone made a little pleased noise and sunk a little further into Jack. Which wasn't exactly the reaction he was going for.

"Y'know," Jack began, trying to sound casual but probably failing miserably. "We don't have to give up our sex life just yet."

Boone looked up at him. Jack guessed he was trying to look unimpressed but there was a slight smile playing on his lips.

"Early night?" Jack suggested, ignoring Boone's attempt to play it cool and make him beg.

Boone tried to keep his face neutral as he climbed off Jack and stood up. "I was feeling kinda sleepy," he mulled.

Jack stood up. "Well, all you have to do is lay there," Jack said. "I'll do all the hard work." He gave Boone a tap on the ass and headed towards the staircase. He hoped Boone was watching after him.


	4. Chapter 4

Tayla was kinda pretty. She wasn't the kind of girl Boone would normally go for but she wasn't unattractive. And her kids were cute. Not heartbreakers maybe but could any kid under the age of ten really be considered a heartbreaker? Well, Shannon definitely was. Or at the very least a heartbreaker in training. She had that quality about her either way. But then Shannon was never one to blend into a crowd. Anyway, eight-year-old Shannon was hardly the point right. Besides, maybe ten-year-old Boone only thought eight-year-old Shannon was a heartbreaker was because he was just that, ten years old.

So, Tayla. She had quite nice eyes. Dark brown and a little soulful. And she was pretty well proportioned, nothing abnormal. Well, not from where Boone was sitting anyway. And, yes, he was fairly sure he was being shallow, but if this woman was having their baby it was going to get some attributes from her so he wanted to make sure he would be okay with that. Totally shallow, he told himself. What was he gonna do if she squeezed out a kid that wasn't good looking? Hand it back?

"I think it's so great that you guys have decided to go ahead with this," Tayla said, smiling widely.

At the prospect of having a baby for them or the money she was getting paid to have a baby for them? Boone mentally hit himself round the head. Jack had warned him about talk like that. But then, Jack warned him about a lot of things. Which Boone would be offended by if Jack didn't make up for it in other areas. And, yeah, Boone was a pushover.

"And this house is gorgeous," Tayla continued, looking around the living room from where she sat. She looked at Boone. "Looks like there's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears gone into it."

Boone smiled a little. "You could say that."

"Well it looks good," she said.

"Thanks."

"So, how soon are you guys wanting to do this?" she asked. "Because I'm ovulating next week is all. You don't have to do it next week but if you guys wanted to get started straight away we can do it then. If not then you've got another month or whatever to sort stuff out."

Boone looked to Jack. No point putting it off, he figured. But there was still stuff to sort out. Like the nursery for example which, right now, looking more like a junk shop. But, even if Tayla did get pregnant next week, though Jack had warned him not to expect results first time around, he'd still have nine months to do the nursery so that really wasn't a problem. But Jack wasn't looking at him. Jack was looking at the coffee table for some reason. He seemed to be thinking quite carefully. He then looked up at Tayla.

"Next week?" he asked, a little too blankly for Boone to read.

Tayla just nodded, apparently having the same trouble as Boone.

Then Jack looked at Boone. He raised his eyebrows a little. "Next week?" he asked again, though the meaning was completely different.

Boone shrugged a little. He still couldn't read what Jack was getting at, which way he was leaning. Boone was fully aware that he was a grown-up and he could make his own decisions but he liked to run them by Jack first, even if Jack wasn't aware he was doing it. But Jack was making his work very hard for him right now by looking at him with that unreadable expression.

Screw it. He turned to Tayla. "Next week's fine," he replied. "If that's okay with you?" Damn, so nearly decisive.

Tayla smiled at him. "I said it's fine by me."

Boone nodded his head a little. Right, she did say that.

"So, have you guys discussed who's gonna play daddy?" she asked. "Biologically I mean."

"We haven't really..."

"Jack," Boone stated, and suddenly realised he'd cut in. Jack turned to look at him. Yep, he was in trouble now.

"What?" Jack asked him.

Boone decided to play it cool. "What?" Jack raised his eyebrows at him. Yeah, that was never going to work really, was it?

"You said 'Jack'" he stated.

"I was trying to get your attention," Boone replied lamely. "To say 'hey, we really need to talk about that.'"

Jack shook his head a little. "Why do you assume it's gonna be me?" he asked. "You don't want to have a kid."

"I want to have a kid," Boone stated, hoping Jack could tell that he really did mean it.

"But you, what, don't wanna father it?" Jack continued.

"Jack, it's not that I don't wanna father it, it's that you do want to father it," Boone explained. "You want to be a dad, a real dad. You want it so much. I'm happy to just be there while you do that."

"Boone, I'm gonna need you to do a little more than be there," Jack stated.

Boone rolled his eyes. "I know that. I didn't mean it like that. I just think it matters to you more," he explained.

Jack looked at him for a beat, considering something. Boone was trying not to look like a nervous wreck. Not that he was a nervous wreck. No, he was a very together person, honest.

"Compromise," Jack suggested. "There's every chance we're gonna have to try this more than once. How about, I take the first try, you take the second and we go on like that?"

Boone smiled. Made sense. And it made Jack happy which Boone was always more than willing to do any way he could. "Okay, deal."

Jack smiled. "Deal."

Jack looked back to Tayla and Boone suddenly realised that he'd actually forgotten she was sat there. Maybe they shouldn't have had that discussion in front of her. Maybe she'd think badly of them for each wanting to apparently dodge the biological label. And that whole thing about having a rota to impregnate her may have been offensive in some way. But she seemed to be still smiling so Boone guessed she was okay with it.

"I guess you got a date with me next week then," Jack told her.

"You have a date with a cup," she corrected him.

Jack nodded a little. Boone hated the thought of that personally so he was glad Jack was having first shot at it. Hopefully Jack would succeed and Boone would never have to 'date a cup'. The thought of doing something like that in somewhere so clinical was the biggest turnoff Boone could imagine. It would be like doing it with your mother in the next room. Which Boone had equal problems with in his teens. Luckily he had a big house.

"I'll sort out an appointment with my doctor at the clinic and let you guys know what's what," Tayla said.

"Okay, sounds good," Jack said.

Tayla got to her feet and Jack and Boone showed her out. Jack then turned to face Boone.

"Is there a particular reason you freak out in the face of responsibility?" he asked.

"I do not." Boone found himself pouting a little, which probably wasn't helping his case much. Jack raised his eyebrows at him. "It just so happens that I used to run a business," Boone pointed out.

"Yeah," Jack conceded. "Because you were too scared to work out what you really wanted to do with your life. That's where real responsibility comes in. Working for your mother hardly counts."

"I was good at that job," Boone insisted. There weren't a huge number of things that Boone considered himself good at but CEO of that godforsaken company was one of them, no matter how much he hated it.

"I'm not saying you weren't," Jack replied levelly.

"So what's your point?" Boone asked, getting increasingly more frustrated. If Jack didn't get to the point soon he was going to have to punch him. Well, not really, because Boone didn't actually know how to punch someone. Not properly. No one had ever taught him how.

"My point is, you don't want to father this baby in case you screw it up somehow and then it would be all your fault," Jack explained. "Which it wouldn't be, by the way. The father of this baby could be anyone, it's me and you who are raising it. Together."

"If it doesn't matter then why don't you just do it?" Boone asked.

"Because you don't want to. And I want to know why."

Boone rolled his eyes. "I just told you," he explained. "Sarah lost the baby and you want another one. You got Sarah pregnant so now you can get Tayla pregnant and everyone's happy."

Jack went quiet. Boone cursed himself. He'd probably crossed a line there. He shouldn't have brought up Sarah, he should know better than that.

"Sorry," Boone said quietly. "I just wanted you to have this cos I know how much it means to you. I didn't mean for it to be such a big deal."

"It is a big deal," Jack insisted.

Boone nodded. Yeah, he guessed it was.

"I appreciate the thought, though," Jack continued. "I know you're trying to help but sometimes you miss the point. I don't care about being the father, I care about you not wanting to be the father."

"I never said I didn't want to," Boone stated. Which wasn't a lie, he never did say that. Sure, he'd much prefer for it to be Jack's baby, but he never said that. But it wasn't to do with him not wanting to be a father, not really. A little bit, sure, but not really. It was to do with the fact that he wanted a little bit of Jack to hang on to, in case anything happened to the real thing. But he wasn't about to say that to Jack. He was fairly sure he'd already been labelled as far too co-dependent as it was.

"So we're cool, right?" Jack asked. "We both get a shot at it?"

Boone nodded. "Whatever you want."

"Okay," Jack concluded. "So, you done playing with the stove or should I order some takeout?"

"I'd go with the takeout." 


	5. Chapter 5

Jack and Boone sat in silence as they drove home from the fertility clinic. Jack wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. In fact, Boone had been pretty quiet for the duration of the morning actually. Jack glanced over at him and saw he was playing with the zipper on his jacket.

"You okay?" he asked.

Boone looked up at him as if coming out of a daydream. "Yeah," he replied. "Yeah," he repeated, a little quieter.

"You sure?" Jack asked him. "You seem kinda quiet."

"Wasn't that kinda gross?" Boone asked, apparently out of nowhere.

"What?" Jack asked.

"The whole, y'know, clinical, y'know..."

Jack threw him a look. "Could you be a little more vague maybe?"

Boone seemed a little uncomfortable. "You know," he said. "The whole cup thing."

Oh, right, Boone was being repressed again. "Boone, it's just a medical act."

"No, it's a sexual act," Boone corrected him. He seemed to give up though as he leaned forward and started playing with the car radio. "What did you think about?"

It was a dismal attempt at sounding casual. And it was an impossible question to answer. Whatever he said, he could bet he'd be playing damage control for the rest of the afternoon.

"Sex," Jack replied simply.

"Like with who?" Boone asked in the same trying-to-be-neutral-but-so-failing tone.

"Boone, I'm not gonna answer that," Jack replied plainly, praying he'd drop the subject.

"Guess that means not me then," Boone said, almost as an aside.

Jack took a deep breath. "No," he began, "It means I'd really rather not talk about it. You were the one who said it was gross."

"Yeah, and you were the one who said it was a medical act," Boone countered.

"My sexual fantasies aren't a medical act, thank you," Jack stated.

He saw Boone smiling beside him. "Okay, but anytime you do wanna share sexual fantasies with me I'm all ears."

"I'll bear that in mind," Jack replied nonchalantly, but was sure to make a mental note of the fact.

Boone sat back in his seat and looked out the window. "So what happens now?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Jack asked.

"Well, we did the whole fertilisation thing with Tayla, how long do we have to wait now 'til we know if it worked?"

"Pregnant women have a hormone present called human chorionic gonadotropin. If she's pregnant it should show up within around six days. I'd say wait a week to be on the safe side. Blood test is the most accurate way to check for it," Jack explained.

Boone nodded a little. "So, medical jargon aside, we'll have an answer in about a week?"

"Yep," Jack replied. "And just for the record I put that in layman's terms for you."

Boone gave him a look that he probably thought Jack couldn't see. "It's a little bit weird to think about though, isn't it?" he suddenly stated quietly.

"Y'know, it would help me out over here if you let me in on what you're talking about," Jack suggested.

"Well, the fact that Tayla has our baby, or might have our baby, inside of her. The fact that she gets to carry it around for nine months and we just have to sit around and wait," Boone explained. "I mean, we're the ones that are gonna raise it but she's pretty much the sole parent until it's born." He paused and shifted a little. "I don't know. It's like she's got something that belongs to us."

Jack nodded. In a way it was a little strange. When Sarah was pregnant, Jack remembered rubbing her baby bump when they watched TV in the evening, reading birthing books together, even though Jack knew everything there was to know about delivering a baby. It wasn't quite so intimate when you barely knew the woman who was carrying your baby. When she wasn't even going to be around in nine months anyway.

"Sorry, I'm going on again," Boone said, sounding dismissive.

"No, I know what you mean," Jack told him. Boone looked at him like he wasn't expecting that. Jack laughed a little. "I do agree with you sometimes."

Boone smiled. "I know," he shrugged. "I keep getting into trouble for saying inappropriate things about this whole surrogacy deal though."

"Boone, you do not get into trouble with me. It's not like I'm an authority figure for Christ's sake. I'm your boyfriend. We're equals," Jack pointed out.

"Okay, fine, not in trouble, but you do think I keep saying inappropriate stuff," Boone insisted.

Jack was getting a little lost here. He tried to remember what the original point was. "Look, I know the situation isn't perfect but until medical science allows men to have babies we're just gonna have to compromise."

"I know," Boone said quietly.

Jack looked at him. "Are you having second thoughts here?" Jack asked carefully.

Boone looked up at him. "No," he said, seeming a little offended. "God, Jack, I didn't mean that. I just feel like we're missing out on a bit of the whole parenthood deal. I don't care though. There's no one I'd rather be missing out on stuff with than you."

Jack wasn't sure what to say to that. Boone was right, they were missing out on a whole chunk of having a child. They could see Tayla pretty much whenever they wanted and they'd be there at all the check-ups as well as at the birth but it just wasn't the same. They wouldn't be there for the morning sickness, they wouldn't be there to get the sharp end of all those pregnancy hormones and they more than likely wouldn't be there the first time the baby kicked. And part of Jack still wanted all that. Getting handed a baby seemed like the easy way out but it also felt like being cheated.

Jack pulled up at the house and shut off the engine but made no move to get out. Boone opened his door and then stopped and looked at Jack.

"Did I do something?" Boone asked.

Jack looked up at him a little vacantly. "What?"

Boone seemed to consider something for a second and then shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "You gonna get out the car?"

"You didn't do anything," Jack told him.

"So, lest I turn into a nervous wreck again, you wanna tell me what's up?" Boone asked. "Cos a second ago I was the one being all introverted and now we seem to have swapped positions."

"No, I was just thinking about what you said," Jack explained. "About missing out on things."

"You feel like you're missing out on something?" Boone asked. But he didn't sound as worried as Jack would have expected.

Jack shrugged. "Different life now," he said. "Whatever you're doing you're always going to be missing out on something, right?"

"Yeah, you are," Boone agreed. "You just gotta make sure you're missing out on the right thing."

Jack looked at Boone. Pretty, slightly dim-witted, getting better at being an insecure mess Boone. Jack didn't really think men could be pretty, girls were pretty, but looking at Boone the word just fit. Jack also didn't think men could be attractive and really good in bed. Well, not with other men, anyway. Not with him. But Boone had proved him wrong again. He had eyes to die for, gorgeous cheek bones and a smile that lit up every corner of Jack's world. And that was pathetically poetic, Jack noted, but also very true. So, Boone or morning sickness and birthing manuals. Yeah, Jack was definitely missing out on the right thing.

"I love you," he said.

Boone smiled that smile and Jack's heart swelled a little. "Thanks," he replied. "So you're done having a meltdown now?"

"I wasn't having a meltdown," Jack told him.

"You were a little bit," Boone said, giving him a faux-superior look. "I think I held it together pretty well, personally."

"Well, you have a lot of practice watching me hold you together," Jack countered.

Boone rolled his eyes. "Right. So long as you're not having a mid-life crisis or anything."

Jack gave him a look. "I am not having a mid-life crisis."

Boone shrugged. "You're old," he said, climbing out of the car.

Jack followed closely behind him. "I'm mature," Jack corrected him. "You'll learn all about maturity when you become a grown-up."

"Oh, I'm sorry, have you ever run a business?" Boone asked him.

"Stop bringing that up, you didn't even like that job," Jack stated light-heartedly, opening the front door and letting the two of them in.

"I like you," Boone said, clearly trying to change tactics.

"But I'm old," Jack pointed out.

"Yeah, you are," Boone replied as he headed into the kitchen.

Jack looked after him. Boone was gonna have to pay for that one. 


	6. Chapter 6

Boone wasn't sure what he was hoping for anymore as he sat in the waiting room of the clinic, Jack on one side of him, Tayla on the other. Baby, he told himself, he was hoping for a baby. Which he was. But for some reason he was feeling ever so slightly petrified and he wasn't sure quite what of. 

"Mrs. Griffin?" the receptionist called out. Tayla looked up. "Dr. Hamilton will see you now."

They all stood up and headed into Dr. Hamilton's office. Boone hated going to the doctor's. Ever since he was a little kid he hated it. There was always a certain smell about a doctor's office. It was sterile but that wasn't quite the right word. Sterile was something that Boone approved of, he liked cleanliness. Cleanliness is next to godliness after all. Not that Boone was particularly godly but that hardly seemed the point. But doctor's offices were different. In a doctor's office everything seemed too sterile, too clean. There was an air of secrets about it, like something horrible had just happened and housekeeping had been called to clean it up.

"So, we're here for the blood test results, I see," Dr. Hamilton noted, paying more attention to the chart in front of him than the three people sat at his desk.

Yeah, real perceptive, Boone thought. He was vaguely aware he was being rather testy and on edge, even if it was just in his head. Actually he was more than vaguely aware of it but he was sufficiently in denial enough to not care.

He looked down at his lap and noticed a small patch of something on his trousers, possibly butter. Well that was embarrassing. All that talk of cleanliness and he couldn't even eat his breakfast like an adult. Except that no one had talked about cleanliness. Only him. In his head. To himself. He started to rub the stain, hoping it would somehow disappear.

"Right, let's take a look then," Dr. Hamilton continued, flicking through the chart.

Christ, how hard is it to find the stupid results, surely he's seen a chart before! He should hand it over to Jack, Jack would find it in a heartbeat. And he'd be a damn sight more direct about things. No beating around the bush with Jack when it came to diagnoses. Boone knew that all too well when Jack proclaimed he had a punctured lung and stabbed him in the chest with a knitting needle. He rubbed the stain a little harder.

"Ah, here we are," Dr. Hamilton declared.

About friggin' time, Boone thought. He didn't look up, he kept concentrating on the stain on his pants. What if someone saw it? Would they let him look after a baby if he couldn't even manage to feed himself successfully?

Jack reached over and took hold of Boone's hand. Boone looked up at him and Jack gave him a calm little smile, giving his hand a squeeze. Boone wasn't sure if it was to make him feel better or stop him from fidgeting but he was thankful either way.

"And we are pregnant," Dr. Hamilton affirmed.

Boone sighed. "Oh, thank God," he said quietly.

"What?" Jack asked him.

Indeed 'what'? Boone wasn't entirely sure what it meant himself. He guessed it meant he didn't have to go through this again. Which would be very nice indeed.

"You're relieved," Jack stated.

"Yeah, cos we're having a baby," Boone stated.

Jack seemed to be about to say something but instead turned his attention back to the doctor. "Thank you, Dr. Hamilton."

"My pleasure," Dr. Hamilton nodded.

Thank you, Dr. Hamilton? What the hell did he do? Except show a complete ineptitude for reading a chart. It's not like he was the one that knocked Tayla up. Jack did that himself. Well, no, actually, Dr. Hamilton did help. It's not like Jack and Tayla did it on their own. Now there's something Boone didn't want to think about.

"Well, congratulations guys," Tayla said with a smile. "First time and everything."

Yeah, first time and with Jack's sperm, that should make everyone happy. Tayla got her money, Jack got his baby and Boone got a mini Jack. And Dr. Hamilton, well, they had the pleasure of his company for the next nine months. How fantastic, Boone thought. A man who couldn't read a chart was going to deliver their baby, that wasn't a thought he relished. Jack could read a chart and deliver a baby. Not that he'd seen any evidence that Jack could deliver a baby due to a small incident involving a plane falling on him but, hey, if Kate could do it, Jack sure as hell could. And yet he still had his doubts about Dr. Hamilton.

They waved Tayla off in the parking lot and heading towards their own car.

"I'm not going to argue about it," Jack stated simply.

Well, that was all well and good, but Boone wouldn't mind being let in on what exactly they weren't arguing about. He looked at Jack for a clue but Jack just unlocked the car and got into the drivers seat. Boone climbed into the car and looked at him again but it was like he never said anything. He started up the engine. Okay, Boone was fairly sure he didn't imagine it.

"Erm, Jack?" Boone asked, a little unsure.

"Yeah?" Jack replied, pulling out of the parking lot.

"What aren't you going to argue about?"

Jack took a deep breath. He looked like he was counting to five in his head, which wasn't really a good sign. Boone waited.

"You're relieved that you don't have to father this baby. That the system took it out of your hands. That you never even had to try," Jack explained.

"I never said that," Boone replied. "Where do you even get that from? I'm happy that it worked."

"I'm not going to argue about it," Jack repeated.

"Then why did you bring it up?" Boone asked.

"I didn't, you did," Jack replied.

Boone threw him a look. "You said you weren't going to argue about it," he pointed out.

"Yeah, and now we're arguing about it," Jack observed.

"We are not arguing," Boone responded, but he had to note that he kind of yelled this last bit.

God, they were just the most useless people ever. How did they manage to turn a happy moment like this into some stupid childish argument? Boone tried to remember if it was his fault. No, it was definitely Jack's fault. He was the one who made stupid snide comments about how he wasn't going to start an argument which could be roughly translated as 'Hey, I'm gonna start an argument now'.

What were they arguing about anyway? Boone was happy. He was glad Tayla was pregnant. And he was also glad that he was glad that Tayla was pregnant. There was a little part of him that was worried that he wouldn't be. But he was. He was happy. He was going to be a dad and that was actually pretty amazing. And he was only now realising that he hadn't actually thought of that fact until just now. He'd thought about it plenty before sure, all that time that he was deciding, both before and after they met Tayla, but not in the last ten minutes, not since it had all come true.

Daddy. Daddy Boone. Daddy Jack and Daddy Boone. And they'd probably have to use stupid names like that being that they were both Daddy and anything else would just get too confusing. But Boone didn't mind, it sounded kinda cute.

"Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?" Boone asked.

"I hadn't really thought about it all that much," Jack admitted. "I hope it's healthy."

"Well, yeah, me too," Boone stated. "I was just wondering."

"Sarah was having a girl," Jack said, a little wistfully. "I don't know if I ever told you that."

"No, you didn't."

"Kimberley Jane Shepherd," Jack continued. "We buried her. In the cemetery by the old house. I used to go there every week. Now I don't remember the last time I went out there." He stopped and sighed a little. "She was so tiny. She was absolutely perfect but she was so, so tiny. She was too tiny."

Boone reached over and put his hand on Jack's thigh. "Sorry," he said, though he knew how pointless the word was right now. Jack smiled a little but Boone could see tears in his eyes. "You wanna pull over?"

Jack shook his head. "I'm good."

"You know that it's okay if you're not, right?" Boone pointed out.

"I should go visit her," Jack said.

Boone nodded. He wasn't quite sure what to say anymore. When he'd gotten back from the island Sabrina had told him that no parent should ever have to outlive their child. Not that she had, but for two and a half years she thought she had, and that was bad enough. And Boone actually needed to call her. But Jack never even got to see his baby alive, not in the flesh. Jack didn't just outlive his baby, he never really had one to outlive. All that promise for a load of blood and a broken marriage.

And Boone was suddenly worrying about how careful Tayla was planning to be over the next nine months. Which he knew was totally selfish considering Jack was reliving his own actual hellish experience next to him but he knew what split up Jack and his former life partner. Lack of baby. Or more specifically, promise of baby that never was. And Boone didn't want to lose Jack. So he hoped Tayla was being careful. Because all it took was a pump left out of place. And Boone was suddenly thinking about the toys all over Tayla's house.

"I don't care if it's a boy or a girl," Jack said.

"Me neither," Boone replied. He was just praying for one that Jack could actually hold this time.


	7. Chapter 7

Jack stopped by the flower shop after work and tried to figure out which flowers Kimberley would have liked best. Which was a stupid idea really. Even if she was alive, she would have been four years old now and probably wouldn't show a preference anyway. Or maybe she would, what did Jack know about kids? But as it stood, she never made it out of the womb so she never even knew what a flower was.

So Jack decided he'd pick out Sarah's favourite flowers, they'd probably be suitable for the occasion. But he was drawing a blank. He'd bought Sarah flowers, he remembered buying them but he couldn't remember what they were. Probably because he didn't care about flowers. They were stupid and sentimental and dead within a week anyway.

"Can I help you, sir?"

Jack spun around to see some kid smiling at him. He felt kind of sad for her in her lame uniform, trying to make a few extra bucks so she could buy some new lip gloss for the yearbook photo.

"I, erm..." He wasn't quite sure what to say. He really didn't want to tell the whole dead baby story, he couldn't stand the look she was bound to give him. "I want to buy some flowers. For my daughter. I don't know what she'd like," Jack explained.

"Okay, how old is she?" the shop assistant asked.

Four? Zero? Timeless? Non-existent? Jack wasn't quite sure what the right answer was. In fact he was fairly sure there was no right answer.

"Four," he replied. It seemed like as good an answer as any, and it hardly seemed to matter anyway.

"She a girly girl or a tomboy?" the kid went on. What was this? Twenty questions.

"I don't know," Jack replied.

"You don't know?" she looked a little puzzled. "Does she play in the mud or does she prefer her dolls?"

This was stupid. How the hell was he supposed to answer these questions? He didn't even have a daughter in the strictest sense. He should just pick a bunch and get out of there.

"She plays with her dolls in the mud," he found himself saying. What the hell was he doing?

"Okay," the shop assistant said. Clearly not the answer she was looking for. She led Jack over to a display and held up what looked like oversized daisies. "How about these?" she asked.

They were plain and simple and they looked kind of like a kid had drawn them so he figured they'd do okay. It's not like Kimberley was going to see them anyway. It's not like Kimberley ever saw anything.

"They're great," Jack said. "I'll take them."

He drove the long way round to the cemetery and went past the house he used to share with Sarah. She got the house in the divorce settlement but he knew she didn't live there anymore. She moved out about a month after all the papers were finalised. Which really pissed Jack off cos she'd fought for that house and then she just left. He swore she did it just to piss him off as well. Which he probably deserved.

He parked the car and walked over to the corner of the cemetery where Kimberley's grave lay. He and Sarah had chosen a modest, simple stone. Just her name, the year, only one year because she lived and died at the same time, and the stupid corny line 'sleeping forever' that Sarah had wanted to put on. He thought that was such a stupid thing to say, especially on a gravestone. Who did they think they were kidding?

He noted that the area was well tended to. Some of the other stones in the area were overgrown but Kimberley's was clear. He guessed Sarah still came by.

"Hey," he said, feeling like a complete idiot. Who did he think he was talking to?

He put the flowers down on the grave and then stood there, unsure of what he was supposed to do. He never got the hang of this. Even when he came every week he found himself just standing there, looking at a bit of rock. He didn't really see the point of it but he still felt like he should go. Like it was his duty or something. Duty to look at a bit of rock in a field on top of a pile of bones. How stupid was that?

He took a deep breath and sighed. He didn't really want to be here but he didn't want to leave either. He sat down and the ground cross-legged and looked at the stone some more.

"Me and your mom aren't together anymore," he said, not sure why the bit of rock would care. "I guess we wanted you more than we wanted each other. I think she's happy now. I haven't seen her but I heard she's got a new fiancé. I'm sure she's happy."

He found himself playing with bits of grass at the edge of the grave, twisting them between his fingers.

"I'm happy," he continued. "With Boone. He's my boyfriend. He's more than my boyfriend. I don't really know what he is. We're having a baby together. Which doesn't mean I'm going to forget about you. You're still my first..."

He was going to say 'born' but Kimberley never was born, she was stillborn, and that was something quite different.

"I really loved you," he told the bit of rock. The pile of bones. The grass he was twisting between his fingers. "I do love you. I still love you. I still think about you all the time and I really thought I'd grow out of that. I thought I'd just get over it all, move on with my life. I thought after a while that maybe dead people would stop mattering. There's always so much going on, there's always so much to do, so many things that need taking care of and I thought that would make me forget about you, I thought it would make you fade away."

There were stupid tears stinging at his eyes now and the bit of rock was getting blurry. He twisted the grass a little harder.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to get over you," he said simply. "I don't know if I am supposed to. If I get over you does that mean that you don't mean anything to me anymore? Does that mean you're not real anymore? That you never were? Because if I get over you then it's like you never even existed. And I know that you did. So I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to have my own life and stay true to you at the same time."

He didn't have any answers. He didn't know how this was supposed to work. Jack saw people dying almost everyday so he shut it out. That's the only way you could deal with it as a doctor, you shut it out. But when it happens to you maybe you have to let it in. So he let himself cry. And he let himself miss her. And he let her go. Just a little bit.

"I don't know if you like the flowers," Jack shrugged. "I don't know if you're a tomboy or a girly girl. I'm sorry that I never got to meet you. But you should know that none of it's your fault. With me and your mom. The divorce. We both saw it coming from a long way off, we just didn't want to admit it. And we're both happy now. With other people. So don't worry about us," he said. "Don't worry about us cos we're doing okay."

He stood up and headed back to the car. 


	8. Chapter 8

God this pregnancy stuff was confusing. Why don't they just start the countdown from conception, why do they have to start from some random date in the menstrual cycle? Boone was really having a hard time with this. So Tayla got pregnant around a week ago now, so surely she should be a week pregnant. Wrong. Conception happens at the end of week two or some time in week three. So did that mean they were in week three now? Or were they in week four? Ovulation happens at the end of week two and that's when they did the whole insemination thing so now they must be at the end of week three. Or actually now would be the beginning of week four because it was a little over a week. Okay, Boone was still confused. 

He heard the sound of the front door and closed the laptop, getting up to meet Jack. He found him in the hall, shrugging off his jacket. The motion seemed a little rusty.

"Hey," Boone said.

Jack looked up at him and gave him a weary smile. He hung up his coat and moved towards Boone. "Hey," he responded.

He pulled Boone into a hug which Boone was more than happy to go with. But then Jack didn't pull away. Which was strange because Jack was usually, no, probably, actually, always the one to pull away. Not that he didn't like hugs, he just didn't get soppy all that often and he seemed to view hugs as a little girly when you weren't horizontal. And still he wasn't pulling away. In fact, he leaned his head on Boone's shoulder and sighed deeply.

"You tired?" Boone asked.

"I guess," Jack replied, a little ambiguously.

"I made dinner," Boone said.

Jack pulled away and looked at him. "I'm sorry," he said.

Boone looked confused. "That I made dinner?"

Jack smiled but it was that weary smile again. "That I'm late," he explained. "I was... I guess I got held up."

Boone shrugged. "No problem. You want it now?"

"Sure."

They went through to the kitchen and Boone portioned out the spaghetti bolognese he'd made. He put a plate in front of Jack and then sat opposite him.

"So, did work kinda suck today?" Boone asked.

"I dunno, it was okay," he replied, sounding downbeat. "What have you been up to?"

"Nursery stuff. I've finished the window panes in there and I've been thinking about the floor. I think it might be best just to go with the floorboards. Probably easier for spillage than a rug, right? When they get older we can think about changing it but now I think floorboards would work best. Means I'll have to go rent that floor sander again. I can go check it out tomorrow."

He looked at Jack who was absently twirling spaghetti around his fork, apparently with no intention of actually picking it up.

"And then I'll have to go visit Victor, my lover," Boone continued. "I always see him on a Thursday so I'll have to fit that into my schedule somewhere."

Jack continued twirling his spaghetti, clearly not listening to a word Boone was saying. He did ask, the least he could do was listen.

"Jack," Boone said.

Jack looked up at him blankly. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"You're not listening to a word I'm saying," Boone pointed out. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. I guess I'm just tired. Drained. I don't know, I'm just out of it," Jack rambled on.

"You feel ill?" Boone asked, getting concerned.

"No. I'm not ill, I'm fine," Jack assured him.

"So what's going on?" Boone asked again.

"Nothing. I'm sorry. I've got some stuff on my mind," Jack explained. "Tell me again, I'll listen."

Boone shook his head. "It doesn't matter. It wasn't important."

Jack sighed. He looked annoyed but he also looked like he was giving up. Which was, again, unusual. Jack wasn't one to back down so easily and he was always willing to argue the toss with Boone. Which was kind of immature, yes, but also expected.

Jack went back to twirling his pasta around but still showed no particular interest in getting it off the plate. Boone watched him, not quite sure what to do anymore.

"You don't have to eat that if you don't want it," he pointed out.

Jack looked up at him again. "No, I want it," he said. "It looks good."

"It's just that you don't seem all that interested in it," Boone continued.

Jack sighed again, breathing apparently some big chore right now, and put down the fork pushing the plate away slightly. He let one hand fall heavily on the table while he brought his other up to rub his forehead.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It does look good. I think I just need an early night."

"Okay," Boone replied.

But Jack made no attempt to leave, he just sat there rubbing his forehead, his action hiding his eyes from Boone. So Boone just sat there and waited for him to do something or say something. Eventually let his other hand drop down and looked at Boone. His eyes were a little wet.

"What's wrong, Jack?" Boone asked, finding himself getting a little frustrated. His kept his voice gentle though.

Jack looked back down at the table cloth. God he was being hard work tonight.

"It doesn't matter, you don't wanna talk about it, it's cool," Boone said, hoping he sounded like at least part of that was true.

"I _want _to talk about it..." Jack said, and then kind of trailed off.

Boone guessed the rest of the sentence was 'but I'm not ready quite yet', which Boone could certainly relate to. So he gave Jack a little smile to let him know he understood. Well, he hoped that's what the little smile conveyed.

"You should go to bed," he told Jack.

Jack nodded. He then looked at Boone again. "Will you come with me?"

Boone looked at him. "You wanna have sex?" he asked. That certainly came out of left field. Not that Boone would really have any objections but it didn't look like Jack was really in the mood.

Jack gave him an amused little smile. "No," he said, and shook his head a little. "I just..." His face evened out and he became more serious again. "I just don't really wanna be on my own."

That must have been pretty hard for Jack to admit, Boone thought. Jack wasn't exactly free and easy with the emotions and he certainly didn't like to let anyone know that he needed them, not even Boone, not really.

Boone nodded. "Yeah. I'll come with you."

Jack gave him a thankful little smile that he guessed was as much to do with the fact that Boone wasn't making a big deal out of it than the fact that he'd agreed.

So he took Jack up to bed and he wrapped his arms around him and he held him tight. Jack rested his head on Boone's chest and Boone had the feeling he had started to cry at one point. But he knew Jack didn't want to talk about it right now, he just wanted Boone to be there for him. So Boone rubbed Jack's back and held him close until he fell asleep, his breathing evening out and his muscles relaxing.


	9. Chapter 9

Jack got up earlier than he had to and left Boone sleeping in bed. He went downstairs and started to make some breakfast. He was just buttering his toast when he heard Boone coming down the stairs. Damn, he thought he might be able to put this off until tonight. 

"Hey," Boone said behind him. Jack didn't bother to reply. "You feeling better today?"

"I'm fine," Jack replied, not turning around.

"You sure?" Boone asked. "Cos last night you seemed kinda..."

"I'm fine," Jack cut in.

"Okay," Boone replied. Jack heard him sit down at the table. "It was kind of a change actually. Me not being the crazy vulnerable one for once."

Vulnerable. Jack hated that word. "Boone, I am sick of putting you back together all the time," he stated calmly. "I'm trying to stop myself from falling apart over here so maybe you could put yourself back together."

Boone was probably looking pretty wounded right now. And Jack conceded that he probably had a right to be. But he was also quite glad that he'd said that, Boone could have a tendency to lean on him a little more than was necessary.

"That's not even what I said," Boone stated. He sounded a little more confused that hurt.

No, it wasn't really, Jack admitted. It needed to be said all the same though. Well, Jack didn't know, maybe it didn't. He turned around to face Boone, who was actually looking more mature than Jack expected. Which put him off for a second.

"Look, this is just something I need to sort out, okay? It's my business," Jack explained to him.

"No, Jack, there's no such thing as _your_ business. We're a couple, it's _our_ business," Boone pointed out. "Jeez, have you ever been in a relationship before?" he asked sarcastically.

Jack laughed a little. "You want to talk about relationships?" Jack asked him. "Let's take a look at your track record, shall we? You're hung up on your high school sweetheart who broke up with you and you barely even noticed. And then you had an incestuous relationship with your sister."

Boone looked annoyed. "It's not incest, she's not even my real sister," he replied.

"And she was drunk," Jack continued. "So you took advantage too."

Boone looked up at him, clearly trying not to lose his temper. Jack thought it might be better if he actually did.

"Why are you doing this?" Boone asked him.

"You brought it up," Jack replied simply. "Face it, Boone, you left yourself open."

"Can you just talk to me, please?" Boone requested.

"What do you think I'm doing now?" Jack asked.

"I think you're trying to hurt me," Boone replied levelly. "And I'm not quite sure why but I'm pretty sure it's some kind of transference thing. So you want to tell me what's really going on?"

When did Boone get so damn perceptive? "I have to go to work," Jack stated.

"Shut up, you don't have to be in yet," Boone pointed out.

"Well I'm sure they won't mind me starting early," Jack said.

"Yeah, and then maybe you can paralyse someone cos you're all distracted and angsty," Boone suggested.

Jack looked at him, considering his options. He then shook his head. "I'll talk to you tonight," he said, heading out to the hall.

"Don't go, Jack," he heard Boone call after him.

He got to the hall and slipped on his shoes. Then he took them off again. He put his hands out in front of him and braced himself against the wall. He took a deep breath and rested his forehead against the cool plaster. He should talk to Boone. He knew he should. But now really wasn't a good time. He really did have to go to work. Not at this very second admittedly but there really wasn't enough time to get into all this right now and he didn't want to leave halfway through. But he didn't want to leave Boone stewing all day either. In fact, if he left things like this, Boone might not even be there when he came back. But of course Boone would because Boone was a sucker and he never felt cheated with the short end of the stick.

He went back to the kitchen and stood in the doorway, looking at Boone who was sat at the table, unaware of Jack's presence. He looked kind of lost, Jack noted. And he hated the fact that he had the power to do that to Boone, because Boone should know better than to take everything so to heart. But then, that's what Jack loved about him.

"Do you think we rushed into things?" Jack asked him.

Boone looked up, a little surprised that Jack came back. "Rushed into things?" he asked.

"The relationship, the house, the baby," Jack elaborated.

"No," Boone replied. "We've been together three years, I don't think we're rushing anything."

"But don't you see, we've been rushing it the whole time. Since the day we met we were rushing things," Jack went on.

Boone looked confused. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Jack went to sit next to him at the table. "We couldn't leave," he explained. "We couldn't get away from each other. We were stuck on an island, we had no choice but to spend everyday together."

"We choice a choice, Jack," Boone replied. "There were a whole bunch of other people on that island too, it's not like we were forced into anything, it's not like there was no other company to be had."

"Okay, sure, we liked each other, I'm not saying we didn't chose to be friends or whatever. We had fun hanging out together and we had an attraction and we wanted to be with each other. But it was never a real relationship, it was never like it would have been, like it maybe should have been," Jack rationalised.

"How do you mean?" Boone asked.

"You have a date with someone and then you drive them home and then you back to your place and then you maybe see them in a couple of days," Jack said. "But it wasn't like that. I couldn't take you home. I couldn't see you in a few days. Things moved really fast because we had no other choice. It was all or nothing. And I'm not saying I regret that I took it all but I think it needs to be addressed that we didn't start out the way we should have done and I think we took everything else for granted." He took a breath. "We never found out if we could live without each other."

Boone looked at him. "You're scared you could live without me?"

Jack just looked at him. There was no answer to that one really. He was fairly sure that whatever he said he wouldn't come off well.

"Does that mean you wanna find out?" Boone asked. "Cos if you were gonna do this you could really have picked a better time. We have a baby on the way, we can't go contemplating trial separations."

"Maybe Tayla'll take it," Jack suggested.

"The baby? Jack, are you serious?" Boone seemed to be waiting for a reply but Jack didn't have the energy. "Okay, not only is there the legal matter of the prenatal agreement we signed with Tayla, there's the fact that you just can't do that to someone. You can't just put a baby inside her and say 'Oh, sorry, I changed my mind'. And that's our baby, Jack, it's ours."

Jack looked at him. All very, very true. And Jack didn't want to give the baby up anyway, Jack was rather looking forward to the baby. And it really was getting to the time he should be leaving.

"This is everything you want and suddenly you don't even want it anymore?" Boone asked.

"I had it," Jack stated, a little louder than was necessary. "I had it and I lost it and I don't want to do that again."

"So this is about Sarah and Kimberley?" Boone asked.

It sounded strange hearing Kimberley's name from somebody else. She must be real if somebody else is talking about her, he thought. But he didn't know what to say to Boone, he barely seemed to know what all the fuss was about himself.

"I'm not going anywhere," Boone stated.

"I'm fairly sure Sarah believed the same thing," Jack pointed out quietly. "She still left."

"Jack, come on, have a little faith in me here," Boone pleaded.

"Two and a half years," Jack said, looking up at Boone. "We were together for two and a half years and you didn't believe that I loved you. Why should I believe that you're not gonna break my heart?"

Boone looked him in the eye and seemed to take the question very seriously. "Okay," he said finally. "Maybe I will break your heart. So, what, are you just gonna shut me out? You think that'll make it easier when it happens? It won't, Jack, it'll make it harder. Because if you keep me at arm's length and then this all falls apart you're always going to be wondering if that was the reason why."

Boone could actually be really smart when he wanted to be. And he was right, Jack's plan to not get hurt by not fully buying in was pretty stupid. He didn't want to do that anyway, he wanted to share everything with Boone, every little detail. But he really did have to go to work. His head was such a mess right now he barely knew which way was up let alone how to handle all this stupid stuff that was spinning around.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Jack admitted. "With any of it. The relationship, the baby..."

"Neither do I," Boone offered.

"We didn't think about this," Jack said, shaking his head a little. "I didn't think about it. I just saw some snapshot in a family album and thought 'Hey, I want that'. But now it's just... Maybe I don't want this baby, maybe I want that baby. Maybe I was just so desperate to get her back that I fooled myself into thinking I was ready." He looked at Boone. "I don't know if I'm ready."

Boone didn't say anything. Jack was hoping for some kind of encouragement but he guessed this was something only he could work out. Boone was the one that said he didn't have to do it alone though.

"I went to see her yesterday," Jack said, not looking at Boone.

"Kimberley?" Boone asked, proving once again that she existed.

Jack nodded. "I don't know what she'd think," he continued. "I don't know if she'd be offended. I don't want her to be offended. I don't want to upset her."

"Jack..." Boone began, but didn't get very far.

"But then I think about the fact that she doesn't think anything because she's not even real and I just..." he trailed off. He'd been through this a million times in his head and he could never get to the conclusion.

"She's real," Boone stated, with a conviction that made Jack look up. "Don't ever think that she's not. Don't just write her off because she didn't get a shot at life like the rest of us."

"I don't know how I'm supposed to balance my feelings for her with my feelings for the new baby," Jack explained. "Whatever I do I feel like I'm cheating one of them."

"You gotta stop worrying about everyone else so much," Boone said, looking ever so slightly amused. "And you have got to stop with this over analysing. I don't really get emotional stuff all that much either, but I learnt pretty early on that the feelings that come out of nowhere, the ones that punch you in the gut and just take you completely by surprise, they're the ones you can trust. Because they're not diluted and they haven't been dissected to hell and maybe you don't even understand them but that's all good. You need to take a step back and just let yourself feel this stuff, whatever it is, good or bad, because the more you block it out and the more you try and take it all to bits and study everything on it's own merits the more lost you're gonna get."

Okay, Boone was being really, really smart. Where the hell did all this come from? Boone turned into an emotional puddle over nothing and constantly questioned everything and everyone around him. But maybe that's because he let the feelings come and dealt with them accordingly. He had to admit that, yes, Boone was swimming with insecurities but maybe that was Boone's natural state and maybe the fact that Boone didn't fight it and didn't try to hide it was actually a good thing. And maybe Jack shouldn't have cut him up over it earlier. He looked at the clock. He was running late.

"I really do have to go to work now," Jack stated.

"Call in sick," Boone suggested, which was just the most un-Boone thing ever. You didn't take a sick day unless you were dead in Boone Carlyle's book.

"I can't, I'm not sick," Jack pointed out.

"That's debatable," Boone said with a smile. "Come on, you know they cut you a load of slack cos of the whole island thing and we really never took advantage of that. And besides, I wasn't kidding about you paralysing someone, your mind's really not gonna be on the job today, is it? You wanna add putting the prom queen in a wheelchair to your list of things to feel bad about?"

"No, not really," Jack admitted.

"Go back to bed," Boone told him. "I'll phone up the hospital and tell them you're not well. And then I'm going to spoil you all day. Unless you wanna be on your own in which case I've got a load of stuff I can sort out in the house."

Jack smiled a little. "I'll take the first one, thanks."

Boone smiled back. "Okay, deal. Now go to bed," he ordered. "I'll be up in a minute."

"Okay," Jack agreed, standing up. There was no way he was pushing Boone away again so he was just going to have to deal with the want that he felt whenever he looked at him. Which wasn't such a bad idea. In fact he kind of wished he'd gone along with that from the beginning.


	10. Chapter 10

"Not teddies, okay?" Boone requested. "They look so obvious." 

"Check, no teddies," Jack nodded.

They walked down the wallpaper aisle and browsed all the kiddie suggestions. All of which were just so uninventive in Boone's eyes. He hated all this kid's stuff. It was all teddy bears and dolls and clowns and alphabets and 123's.

"What's your view on trains?" Jack asked him, picking a roll up.

"No trains," Boone said. "And trains don't even look like that so it's just uneducational."

"Steam trains look like that," Jack pointed out, replacing the roll to the shelf.

"Yeah, and when was the last time you saw a steam train, Jack?" Boone asked him.

Jack shrugged a little as they continued down the aisle. "Okay, so what are we looking for here? Could you give me a clue?"

"I'm hoping I'll know when I see it," Boone replied. "I just don't want something stereotypical, I want something nice."

"What you think is nice and what kid's think are nice are two very different things," Jack pointed out. "I mean, what did you have when you were a kid?"

"Are you kidding? You think Sabrina would let me mess with her interior design? My walls were Empire Blue, eggshell finish," Boone explained.

Jack looked at him. "She never let you have any fun wallpaper or anything?" he asked.

"She spent a fortune on that place and there was no way I was gonna mess it up," Boone went on.

"God, no wonder you're so repressed," Jack said, turning back to the wallpapers.

Boone looked at him. "I am not repressed," he insisted. "Why would you think I was repressed?"

Jack just raised his eyebrows at him and continued browsing. Boone wasn't repressed. Well, he was fairly sure he wasn't repressed. He was just controlled and grown-up is all. He had maturity and grace. So he didn't like things out of place and he didn't talk about his sex life and he had that slight meltdown the time that Jack put an entry into his phone book and messed up his system. But that didn't make him repressed. He was having sex with a man, that wasn't very repressed of him.

"Maybe you should break with tradition and go with something a little more exciting," Jack suggested. "You can't make a kid live with boring paint shades."

"Maybe," Boone agreed. Half agreed. Well, he was considering it.

"Balloons?" Jack asked, offering another one up to him.

Boone shook his head. "No, not balloons," he said. "Balloons don't make any sense.

"What's that supposed to mean, 'balloon's don't make any sense'?" Jack asked. "What sense do you expect them to make, they're balloons."

"I just don't get why someone would want to look at balloons all day," Boone wondered. "I mean, balloons don't mean anything."

"They're not supposed to mean anything, Boone, they're supposed to look nice," Jack explained. He put the choice down and moved on.

"Do you really think I'm repressed?" Boone asked.

Jack gave him a look. "Why don't you pick something out," he suggested.

Boone looked at the selection. "I'm just looking for something a little more..."

"Grown-up?" Jack finished. "Because you're shopping for a child, remember."

"Newborns can't even see that far, can they? They won't be able to check out the wallpaper from the crib," Boone said.

"No, but that's not going to last very long. The eyesight does improve," Jack explained. "And quit stalling."

"I wasn't stalling," Boone said, resisting the urge to pout. He looked the selection over again. Crap, crap, crap. There was nothing here that even slightly took his interest. And he knew he wasn't shopping for himself but contemplating what someone who wasn't even born yet would like was even more impossible than trying to buy a Christmas present for Shannon. "Maybe we should wait," Boone suggested. "I mean, we don't even know if it's a boy or a girl yet, how are we supposed to pick something out?"

"You're the one who wanted to have it all finished," Jack reminded him. "Finish the nursery and you've finished the house."

"That's not true," Boone told him. "I still have a bunch of tinkering to do elsewhere."

"I think you should try and keep your tinkering to a minimum," Jack suggested.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Boone asked, a little offended.

"Last weekend you were tinkering with the fuse box and you made all the lights go out. For four hours."

"That could have happened to anyone," Boone dismissed, looking back to the wallpapers.

"Had to happen to you though, didn't it?" Jack joked.

"Can we concentrate, please?" Boone requested. "We're supposed to be picking out some wallpaper here."

"I thought you wanted to wait," Jack said.

"I changed my mind, let's just find something," Boone replied.

"Okay, Mr. Contradiction, what are we going for?" Jack asked.

"I don't know," Boone said, more than a little put off. "I want something that means something."

"To who?" Jack questioned.

"Well, preferably our child but as we haven't met them yet I'm guessing that's a bit of a long shot," Boone replied. "So something that means something to us, I guess. I want something that's not just a generic pattern, something a little more personal."

"Maybe we should ditch the wallpaper idea then," Jack suggested. "We could always paint something, a mural."

"Art was never my strong point," Boone admitted. "You?"

"Practically flunked it in high school," Jack replied. "So wallpaper it is then," he said, looking back to the selection. He then suddenly moved away from Boone and grabbed something off the shelf, hiding it behind his back. "Okay, I got it," he declared.

"What are you doing?" Boone asked. Jack was acting like a big kid, which really wasn't like Jack.

"Think about our history together," Jack requested. "What could mean something to us? What brought us together? What bonded us?"

Boone thought about it. "Aeroplane disaster?" he ventured.

Jack pulled a face. "Close."

"Aeroplanes that haven't been in an aeroplane disaster?" Boone guessed.

Jack gave him a look. "Think post-aeroplane disaster."

"Crazy island?" Boone suggested.

"Can you be a little more specific?" Jack asked.

"Not really, I don't know where the hell the island was. Still. And don't you think that's a little bit strange by the way?"

"Boone, focus. Where did we spend time on the island?"

"Beach?" Boone suggested.

"And...?"

"Cavetown?"

"And...?"

Okay, Boone was getting a little lost, they were running out of locations fast. He looked at Jack who rolled his eyes. "Oh, jungle," Boone said suddenly. Why didn't he think of that? There was a hell of a lot of jungle.

"Right, thank you," Jack exclaimed. "Remember our first kiss?"

Remember? Like Boone was ever going to forget that. Boone was heading back from the caves to the beach after half a day of hunting with Locke when Jack decided he would make a water run to the people still living on the beach. Which Boone thought was strange because he knew for a fact that Jack did a run earlier that day with Kate and Sayid and he couldn't imagine why they'd need more water bringing. But he was happy to have Jack's company for the walk so he went along with it. The two of them had been spending time together and there'd definitely been some flirting but Boone still didn't think much of it. Even after Shannon's teasing drew attention to the fact that Jack was rather more friendly with Boone than he was with Kate, Boone still didn't really think that meant anything. Jack was straight, end of story. But then, when they were about half way through the walk and sufficiently in the middle of the jungle, Jack stopped Boone. And then he said something that Boone can't remember. And then he kissed him. And it was strong and gentle at the same time but one thing that really struck Boone was that there was no hesitation. It was short and sweet and rather chaste but it certainly opened a door. In fact it ripped the door off it's hinges and left it for firewood.

"Okay, the jungle's personal," Boone agreed. "There any polar bears on it?"

Jack took the paper from behind his back and looked it over. "Lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, but no polar bears."

"Well, it's not entirely accurate then, but I guess it'll do," Boone said with a smile.

"Okay then," Jack said, picking up a few rolls and heading for the tills.

"Hey, Jack?" Boone asked.

Jack turned to look at him as they walked down the aisle. "Yeah?"

"Do you really think I'm repressed?"

Jack smiled. "You could try and prove me wrong when we get home," he suggested.

Boone smiled. He could do that.


	11. Chapter 11

Jack had a day off, what felt like his first day off in forever. And he liked to spend his days off with Boone but Boone had made it rather clear that Jack was getting very much in the way and would he please get out of the way before Boone was forced to put a drill bit through his skull. So Jack decided to go and visit his mother, which he really didn't do as often as he should. 

He pulled up outside the house and wondered if maybe he should have called first. She might be out or have company over. But both of those things seemed very unlikely when considering his mother so he got out of the car and knocked on the door. She took a while to answer and Jack worried that he might have misjudged her when she slowly opened the door. She looked at him and a smile came over her face.

"Jack."

"Hey, mom," he smiled.

"Well, it's nice to see you, come in," she insisted, opening the door to him.

He went through to the living room and looked around. He couldn't help but note that it looked exactly the same as when he'd left to fetch his father from Sydney three years ago. Of course, he should be used to that by now, but somehow, every time he came, he expected a little something to have changed, a little sign of progress to have nudged itself in, but save for the updated TV guides, there was nothing he could remark on. His mother followed him through.

"Can I get you a drink? Some coffee?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure," he replied. "Thanks."

She headed off to the kitchen and Jack took a seat on the sofa and looked around again. It was quite depressing really. It was like his mother was waiting for something. Like she expected his father to just walk through the door any minute, like he was just doing another shift at the hospital. And he knew that it must have been hard for her being in limbo for two and a half years while Jack was away, missing, presumed dead, but he'd been back six months and she still seemed to be waiting. And somehow the fact that, when Jack found his father's coffin, it was empty, just seemed to give her some other reason to not quite believe it was over, to not quite give up. An empty coffin didn't mean anything to Jack though. His father was dead, he saw the body. So the coffin was empty, all that meant was no burial.

His mother came back through and handed him his coffee, taking a seat opposite him.

"I'm sorry, I don't really have anything in, cakes or anything," his mother apologised, looking rather guilty.

"Mom, it doesn't matter," Jack assured her. "Don't worry about it, really."

She nodded a little. "This is a nice surprise, anyway," she went on.

"Well, Boone threw me out so I figured I'd come see you," Jack replied offhandedly.

His mother looked worried. "Are you two having problems?"

Jack suddenly realised how his comment came across. "No," he said quickly, shaking his head. "No, I just meant I was getting in his way. He was trying to get some work done, is all. We're fine. We're great, in fact."

His mother breathed out again. "Well, that's all right then," she replied. "You're happy?"

Jack nodded. "I'm happy."

His mother nodded back. "Good," she said. "You should be."

"You too, you know," Jack told her.

"I'm okay," she assured him.

Jack considering bringing up the time warp that was her house or how unhealthy it was for her to keep putting off the grieving process but he thought better of it. Besides, he was hardly one to talk on that front.

His gaze wandered to the mantelpiece and he saw his parents' wedding photo amongst the other family shots. They both looked so young and happy and it made Jack sad to know that his mother probably looked at that picture everyday and put off letting him go just a little bit longer. He then scanned the other photos and noticed that, right at the end, his mother still had up his own wedding photo with Sarah.

"Mom, you have still have my wedding photo up," he felt the need to point out, though he was fairly sure she realised that.

She looked around all the same though, as if to check. She turned back to him. "Yes," was all she said.

"I'm not married to Sarah anymore. We got divorced. Three and a half years ago. Why would you still have that up?" he asked.

"Because you got married," she replied simply.

Jack was about to reply when he realised he didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Of course he got married, that's why he had a wedding photo, but he also got divorced and surely that was more important right now. "You don't have any photos of Boone. Of me and Boone."

"You never gave me any. And it's not like the two of you give me many opportunities to take my own," she replied.

Well, that was fair enough, Jack guessed. But he wasn't sure that, if he did give her a photo, she would put it up. Maybe his mom liked to remember a time when Jack and Sarah were still together and her husband was coming home at any minute. If she had a photo of Boone up she would have to address the fact that Jack was on that island which in turn would make her address why Jack ended up on that island which was of course to bring his father's body back. To bring her husbands body back.

"I'm sorry I don't visit much," Jack found himself saying. "I work a lot and when I'm not working me and Boone are trying to sort out the house and get everything ready for when the baby comes. But I should make some time to come and see you. I should make more of an effort."

"You don't have to worry about me here, Jack," she told him. "I'm quite content on my own."

"You know that you can come to the house any time," he continued. "Boone's always there, even if I'm not."

"How is the girl who's having that baby for you?" she asked, changing the subject. "What was her name?"

"Tayla," Jack replied. "She's doing fine. And the baby's doing fine. We had a check up last week, everything's normal."

"Good. Second chances are few and far between so I'm glad you're taking advantage," she told him.

Jack had never really thought of his life like that before and he wasn't really sure if he wanted to. Describing Boone as his second anything just seemed absurd. Boone could never come second, he was definitely number one all the way. And he really didn't want to start putting a 'second' label on the baby, he was having enough trouble there as it was. But he could see where his mom was coming from. And he guessed she was right. When flight 815 crashed down he should have died, they all should have done, but they didn't. But something had changed and there was a feeling that their lives were different now than they were before. And Jack told him self that it was just to do with the fact that, as far as they knew, they were never getting off that island, but something happened. Something that helped him let go of Sarah and start again. From scratch. With Boone. But nothing with Boone was a second, everything was a first, and that was about as special as it could get.

"Will you put a picture of me and Boone up?" Jack asked. "And the baby when it comes."

His mother hesitated for a second but it was a second too long. "Yes, of course."

Jack wanted to grab her and scream 'He's not coming back' but he just couldn't do it. Everyone has their own ways of dealing with grief and pain and his mother's was clearly to stay in denial. And, hey, let's face it, that was Jack's drug of choice too until a little while ago. And even though it still hurt to think of Kimberley and even though he was still as confused as hell about what he was supposed to be feeling about who, just the simple addressing of these things, even if he didn't have any answers, had made him feel so much closer to free. But then came the question of whether he wanted freedom from that life or not.

But his mother didn't have a new life, she didn't have anything to move on to, and she didn't have anyone to move on with. So Jack couldn't make her let go of the one thing that was quite possibly keeping her going because he had a feeling she'd be letting go of a little more than his father.

"Bring Boone with you next time and I'll take a photo," his mother said, and she really sounded like she meant it.

Jack smiled at her. "As soon as I can drag him away from that house you have my word," he promised.

His mother nodded. "And that baby when they're born."

"Don't worry, you're first on my baby-sitting list," Jack told her.

"I don't know if I'm up for all that again. It's been a long time since I've dealt with a baby," she replied. "I wouldn't change having you for the world but I don't envy you having a newborn around."

"Yeah, it's gonna be hard work," Jack admitted. "But I really can't wait."

"I always thought you'd be a good father," she told him.

Jack smiled at her. She'd never told him that. When he'd gone round with Sarah to announce they were pregnant she never said anything to him. The whole pregnancy she never told him. And after Sarah lost the baby he guessed saying that would just be cruel. But a lot had changed since then, and even though his mother didn't want to admit it, she must have known. Besides, Jack guessed he wouldn't have been the best father back then anyway. He was too busy trying to keep up with his father at work and, towards the end, keep an eye on his father at work. His hours were too long even before Sarah lost the baby and, as much as he wanted Kimberley, he guessed he wouldn't really have calmed his schedule down for her. But now he intended to take time off when the baby was born, and he intended to work less shifts so he could spend more time with Boone and the baby and he wasn't going to take calls about hospital business at home, one thing that used to drive Sarah mad. New life, new Jack.

"Thank you," he said. And he wanted to say something like 'I had a good example' but, let's face it, he didn't. His father taught him a lot of things but what he usually took away from observing his dad was how _not_ to act and that wasn't really the same thing. He knew how not to treat his child but crediting his father with that seemed a little unjust, even if it was ultimately true.

"You can keep the picture up if you want," Jack told her. He wasn't sure why.

"I want a picture of you and Boone," his mother told him. "I like that picture because you look so happy, you look like you have your whole life ahead of you. And you look like that whenever you sit next to Boone."

Except the look meant a whole other thing when he sat next to Boone, Jack thought. Sure, he had his life ahead of him, but he had his life behind him too and so did Boone. It was like he and Boone met halfway somewhere which was complicated what with all the baggage but it was also great because they got a chance to try a lot of other stuff out before they made their decisions. They'd both seen a lot of things. A lot of love, a lot of hurt, a lot of choices. And they'd chosen each other. And Jack was a fool for ever thinking of it in any other terms.

He smiled at his mother and nodded his head. "You can have a picture of my life," he said.


	12. Chapter 12

"Now, before we start, do we want to know the sex of the baby today or do we want to be surprised?" Dr. Hamilton asked them.

Well, that was a question and a half. Boone had been dying to know if they were having a boy or a girl, just so that they knew what kind of things to buy, but now that the offer was actually there he wasn't so sure anymore. Shannon had been desperate to know. She'd told Boone she didn't care but as soon as she went in for her sonogram the day after they were rescued she wouldn't stop nagging at them until they told her.

But Boone wasn't so sure if he wanted to turn it into a big deal. He wasn't sure if it was sexist to ask if they were having a boy or a girl. He told himself it was practical to find out but he still had some niggling doubt that he was perhaps being inequitable, which he understood was quite ridiculous but it was there all the same.

He looked at Jack who he realised was looking back at him. They really should have talked about this.

"Erm, no, we don't want to know," Boone replied. He checked with Jack for confirmation who gave him a little nod and a smile so he guessed he was okay with it.

"Okay," Dr. Hamilton said, making a move to begin the sonogram.

"Wait, yes," Boone said.

Dr. Hamilton looked at him.

"Or, no," Boone continued. "I'm gonna go with no."

Dr. Hamilton waited to see if he was going to speak up again. "You sure?"

Boone looked to Jack who was looking slightly amused. "Boone, I don't really mind, it's up to you," Jack told him.

"Oh, thanks, that's very useful," Boone replied sarcastically. He turned back to Dr. Hamilton. "We don't want to know."

Dr. Hamilton tried to hide a smile, not very successfully. Smug bastard, Boone thought. "All right then," he said, turning back to Tayla. "Okay, Tayla, this is going to be a little cold," he told her as he picked up a bottle of something.

"Don't worry, I'm used to it," she replied.

Dr. Hamilton squirted something gross looking onto Tayla's stomach and spread it around a bit. He then put the instrument onto her stomach and moved it around, looking at the screen. "Okay, let's see."

Boone looked at the screen but all he could see was distortion, it was little better than a snowy television reception. He glanced at Jack who seemed to be looking more carefully, probably able to see something Boone wasn't.

"Here we are," Dr. Hamilton said.

Boone turned back to the screen and there it was. His baby. Little baby Jack. Okay so it was still pretty fuzzy and grainy but he could definitely make out the shape of a miniature person all scrunched up in, well, the fetal position.

"Wow," Boone said. "That's pretty... wow."

Jack reached over and took hold of his hand. "Pretty cool, huh?"

Boone smiled at him. "It looks like a real baby."

"It is a real baby," Jack pointed.

"Well, I know that," Boone said. "But now I can see it. It's different."

"Yeah," Jack agreed.

Boone looked back to the screen. "Does it look okay? Does it look normal?" he asked Dr. Hamilton.

"Yep, they look healthy to me," he replied, scanning the screen.

"Can you tell what it is right now?" Boone asked. "The sex, I mean."

"Not from this angle but I can take a look for you if you like," he said, moving the instrument over.

"No," Boone said quickly. "No, it's okay."

"Boone, if you wanna know..." Jack began.

Boone shook his head. "No, I wanna wait," he said. "I wanna find out when they're born."

He looked back to the screen. It was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. In another 20 weeks they were going to be real actual parents. With a baby. Boone couldn't believe they were already half way there, it seemed like only yesterday they were here getting their results.

He turned to Jack. "Does it look normal to you?" he asked quietly.

"Boone, I'm not exactly an expert in this field," Jack told him.

"Yeah, but you're a doctor, and you know about this stuff. You know a damn sight more than I do," Boone said.

Jack smiled at him. "Looks fine from where I'm stood."

Well, that was nice to hear. He knew that he should trust Dr. Hamilton but he didn't know Dr. Hamilton and he knew Jack. Plus, Dr. Hamilton hadn't saved his life. In the middle of the jungle to boot. Which Boone was sure was no mean feat so his trust was definitely going in Jack.

Boone and Tayla were sitting in the waiting area while Jack signed off on some paperwork when Tayla suddenly started giggling, putting a hand up to her stomach. Boone looked at her sideways.

"Baby's moving," Tayla explained.

Boone turned to fully face her. "Really?" he asked with a smile.

"Yeah." She looked at him. "You wanna feel?"

Boone shook his head. "Oh, no, that's okay," he said. He didn't really know Tayla all that well and it didn't feel right to start touching her up in some doctors office. Which he knew wasn't what he would be doing strictly speaking but it just didn't feel like the right thing to do.

"Come on," Tayla said. "It's your baby."

Boone wanted to point out that it wasn't really his baby in the strictest sense, it was her and Jack's baby. But that really wasn't going to get him anywhere but in Jack's bad books.

Tayla grabbed his hand and put it on her stomach. "Hang on a sec, wait 'til they do it again," she said.

And then he felt it. It wasn't what he expected. In fact, if Tayla hadn't told him what he was feeling he probably wouldn't have known what the hell it was. It was subtle and it felt kind of like little bubbles moving under the surface. Boone smiled widely.

"Cool, huh?" she said.

"It's like butterflies," he said.

Tayla nodded. And he was kind of jealous of the fact that she got to feel this all the time. He felt connected, he could feel his baby moving, actually feel it moving. And okay, yeah, it was his baby. Not in any biological sense but if anyone knew that DNA really didn't matter all that much when it came to families it was him. Family wasn't just to do with blood, it was to do with love and acceptance and belonging.

"Am I missing something?" Jack asked as he walked up to the pair.

"Jack, come here, you gotta feel this," Boone exclaimed, motioning him over.

He sat down next to Tayla. "You mind?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "Go for it."

Boone guided Jack to where his hand was and Jack smiled at him, clearly feeling what he'd felt. "Isn't that the coolest thing ever?" Boone gushed. "This might be better than actually seeing them."

"Yeah, it's pretty special," Jack replied, taking his hand off Tayla's stomach. "Thanks," he said to her.

Boone sat in the car with the sonogram on his knee, looking it over. "Wow, I can't wait to show this to Shannon, it's so cool," he said. He knew he was acting like a crazy idiot but he didn't even care. And it was funny really cos he didn't even want a baby all that much. Not that he didn't want a baby but he really wasn't desperate for one. In fact, if it wasn't for Jack wanting one so much it probably wouldn't have even occurred to him. Which was pretty stupid cos he was clearly made to be a father.

"You're really excited," Jack grinned at him. "You're acting like Charlie on a sugar high and that's pretty excitable."

"Sorry," Boone said.

"No, I think it's great, but I'm getting worn out just looking at you," Jack told him.

"I just, I can't really believe it, y'know," Boone began, trying to find the words. "I guess it hadn't really sunk in. I mean, it had, but I guess it hadn't" He was aware of the fact that he was making little to no sense. "Now I can see it. And I can feel it. And it's like a little person, a real little person. And I guess I hadn't really thought of them like that before. I guess I didn't really expect to feel a connection until they were born."

"Oh, you start to bond before their born, believe me," Jack said.

Boone cringed at his stupidity. Good one, Carlyle, put your foot in it again. But Jack still looked happy, which was pretty weird because he tended to have a meltdown if anyone mentioned Kimberley or alluded to Kimberley or said something that randomly reminded him of Kimberley. But Boone guessed he should count his blessings so he wasn't about to push the issue.

He looked down at the sonogram again. Little, tiny baby Jack. He knew he should stop calling them that but it was a baby Jack and that was what made him love it so much more. Having a Jack baby was so much more special to him than having a Boone baby. Which Shannon thought was weird because she said it would be like raising somebody else's baby. But Boone couldn't think of anyone's baby he'd rather raise.

"You ready to go home?" Jack asked.

Boone looked up at him. "Let's go shopping," he said. "I want to buy baby stuff."

Jack smiled and shook his head a little. "You're the boss," he said as he started up the engine. 


	13. Chapter 13

"David?" Jack suggested. 

"No," Boone replied. "Jenson?"

"No. Mary?"

"That's an old person's name," Boone said. "Nicolette?"

"That's a faux rich name if ever I heard one," Jack replied. He didn't remember it being this hard with Sarah. But Sarah was pretty strong headed, she knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it. Boone usually got his own way too but it took him a damn sight longer to work out what his own way was.

"Bernadette?" Boone suggested.

"No," Jack said. "We haven't even agreed on a surname yet," he pointed out. "You thinking Carlyle-Shepherd or Shepherd-Carlyle?"

"Oh no, no double barrel names," Boone said, shaking his head. "I am not giving my kid a double barrel name."

"Why not?" Jack asked.

Boone rolled his eyes. "Because you see someone with a double barrel name and you automatically think they come from money."

Jack looked around at the not so cheap house. Okay, so they got a good price for it because it was a wreck but the market value right now was pretty high. "Not exactly a stretch, is it?" he commented.

"That's not the point," Boone said, looking a little irritated. "You think that they're all posh and upper class and stuck up and righteous and..."

"Okay, okay," Jack cut in. Boone's rants could be cute but right now he just wanted to make some kind of decision. And then he realised that, if they were only going with one of their names, maybe Boone was trying to dodge the whole responsibility thing again. "So let's go with Carlyle," Jack said, gauging Boone's reaction. But he didn't really have one.

"If you want," he replied with a little shrug, looking over the name book again.

"Do you not care?" Jack asked, getting annoyed. And also getting annoyed at the fact that he was getting annoyed. Let's face it, if he got the opposite response, his reaction would have been exactly the same.

Boone looked up at Jack. "Seems fair," he said. "Your DNA, my name, our baby."

Which, of course, made perfect sense but Jack didn't think Boone would think so. Maybe he was underestimating him. Maybe he wasn't trying to dodge anything at all. In fact, he seemed really excited about the whole baby thing so Jack wasn't sure where his doubts were coming from.

"Alex?" Boone asked, already looking back at the book.

"For a boy or girl?" Jack asked.

"Boy."

"No."

"Girl, then?"

"No."

Boone rolled his eyes. "Then why did you even ask?"

"I don't know," Jack said, feeling far too tired for all this right now. "How about we go with Baby Carlyle for now and pick this up later."

"Okay," Boone said, putting the book down on the kitchen table. He then looked at Jack expectantly.

Jack sighed and looked around the kitchen. "A boon is a gift," Jack said absently, staring into space. "No 'e' though."

"I think a 'Jack's' a gift too if you ask me," Boone smiled.

"It says Boone means good in that book," Jack continued.

"Good at what?" Boone asked suggestively.

Jack picked up on it but let it go. He wasn't really in the mood right now. He was tired and he was feeling a little disconnected. Not from Boone, just in general. He felt kind of far away. "Just good," he replied.

Boone started flicking through the book. "Jack is from John which means 'God is merciful'," he read out. He shook his head. "That doesn't fit you."

"It doesn't?" Jack asked, not fully paying attention if he was honest. He didn't care all that much what his name meant. It's not like it was going to have a huge impact on his life.

"Fits the other John pretty well though," Boone smiled. Jack looked at him. "Locke," Boone explained.

"Oh, right," Jack nodded. Yeah, Locke would totally buy that whole 'God is merciful' crap. If God was around, Jack didn't think he was all that merciful.

Boone started flicking through the book again and then started laughing.

"What?" Jack asked.

"Shannon means 'wise one'," Boone replied. He put the book down on the table again. "I guess those meanings really are a bunch of crap then, huh?"

Jack nodded. "Just a name," he said.

"Right. 'What is in a name?' and all that," Boone smiled.

"We've got plenty of time to think about all this," Jack stated.

"I don't want a totally boring name," Boone said.

"I thought we were dropping this," Jack replied.

"I'm just saying. Nothing boring. But nothing stupid and outlandish. Something in-between."

"Okay," Jack replied, closing his eyes.

"Where are you?" Boone asked.

Jack opened his eyes and looked at him. "I'm here."

Boone raised his eyebrows. "In your head," he clarified.

Jack shook his head. "Nowhere," he replied. "Really, actually, nowhere. I don't know."

"You must be thinking about something," Boone insisted.

"I don't know what I want to call the baby," Jack stated.

"I thought you said it didn't matter yet," Boone pointed out.

"It doesn't," Jack agreed. "Not yet."

Boone looked at him. "So, then, what's the problem?"

Jack thought about it. He was fairly sure there was no problem. In fact, that wasn't even what he was really thinking about, he'd just said it so he could answer. The problem, if you could call it that, was that he wasn't actually thinking about anything. And he didn't really want to. Was that a problem? He looked at the clock. Too early to go to bed. He didn't think he'd sleep anyway.

"Jack?"

Oh, right, Boone was still waiting for an answer. "No problem," Jack replied. "I'm sorry, my head feels a little fuzzy."

Boone looked a little worried.

"What?" Jack asked him.

"Well, last time you went all quiet and introverted like this was after, _y'know_, and before..." he paused. "_Y'know_."

"Relax, not gonna happen right now," Jack assured him. "Asshole Jack is gone."

"You weren't being an asshole," Boone said.

"I practically accused you of raping your sister," Jack said. "I was being asshole."

"Okay, you were being a bit of an asshole," Boone conceded. "I forgive you."

Jack smiled at him. "I just want to be able to do a simple task like this."

"Simple task like naming our baby?" Boone asked. "How is that a simple task? You have to live with this decision for the rest of your life. And so does the poor kid."

"Great, now it's even more complicated," Jack said.

"It's not complicated, it's just not simple either. It falls in a category somewhere in-between, like most things in life," Boone told him. "Stop looking at everything in black and white, you can't tell me you believe that's the way the world works. Lot of grey areas, Jack. We're a grey area."

"We're not a grey area," Jack insisted. "I love you."

"Yeah, I love you too, what's that got to do with anything?" Boone asked.

"I'd say it's got quite a lot to do with things," Jack replied, hoping that Boone was going somewhere seriously good with this.

Boone rolled his eyes. "Because we're bi," he explained. "Grey area. And I'm not entirely sure how that links into the original topic anymore or even what we were actually talking about come to think of it but..." he trailed off.

"Let's pick this up later," Jack suggested.

"Yeah, let's do that," Boone agreed.

"How about we go watch something not too mentally taxing on TV?"

Boone smiled at him. "Gets my vote."


	14. Chapter 14

Boone watched Shannon with Zara and noted how she made it look so very easy. Parenting that was. Boone didn't really get kids all that much. But you could pretty much guarantee that Shannon got them even less once upon a time so he guessed there was still hope for him. And he was sure that Jack could help steer him around the curves, Jack seemed to be an expert at everything. But then he didn't want Jack to have to do that, he wanted to be good at it all on his own so that he could keep up with Jack. 

"You know the first time they put her in your arms, did you, kind of, panic at all?" Boone asked.

"No," Shannon said with a shake of her head. "You know I really didn't. Which was kind of weird because I spent pretty much the last four weeks of my pregnancy in a blind 'oh my God, I so can't do this' panic."

"So what happened?"

Shannon shrugged. She adjusted Zara in her lap and looked down at her. "I just kind of loved her," she said simply. She looked back at Boone. "I mean, the thought of them handing me some squirmy, slimy, completely dependent little mess of a thing was horrifying. What the hell was I supposed to do with it? I kind of figured I'd let Sayid deal with it for a while until it was a little more capable, y'know. I'd definitely come round to the idea of having a kid but the idea of having a newborn still terrified me. But then they handed her to me, and she was covered in gunk and she was totally tiny and she was screaming her head off and, I don't know, it wasn't so scary after all."

"So it's okay once you get to see them and hold them and stuff?" Boone asked. "That panic part goes away?"

"Did with me," she shrugged. "Why you having a panic?"

"It's not a _panic_," Boone replied, though the word did seem rather apt. He was so looking forward to meeting his baby, and there was no way anything about them could disappoint him but then he got to thinking that what if he was a disappointment to them? Not that you could really disappoint a newborn, surely. Their expectations can't be that high.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, someone needs changing," Shannon declared, standing up with Zara.

"Hey, Shan?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you show me how to change her? I don't really know how to do all that," Boone admitted.

Shannon gave him a smile like she was going to come up with some great witty put down like she always did when they were kids and anyone asked her for anything. Then her smile became softer and a little amused. "Follow me," she said as she headed to Zara's nursery. Boone didn't hesitate.

Shannon placed Zara down on the table and lifted up her little dress. Shannon had said that she wasn't going to go with girly clothes but she'd changed her mind as soon as she'd gotten to the mall.

"It's really not that hard," she stated, beginning to take the diaper off. "Just pull the tabs and take the old diaper off. You just lift her legs and slide it out, and fold it while you do it." She threw the diaper in the trash and grabbed the baby wipes. "Then you just clean her up. Remember to wipe front to back. If it's a girl, I don't know with a boy so much. Then you just put some cream on to help with diaper rash cos you don't want her getting all sore. And believe me, you really don't, she'll scream at you. Then you just grab yourself another diaper. Put it under her butt like this, and then fasten it up." She finished up and lifted Zara off the changing table. "And hey presto."

"That's not so hard," Boone said. "I could do that."

"See, it's not all that complicated. You'll be fine, Boone," she told him. "If I can do it, I'm sure you'll be fine."

"You're so good with her," Boone commented.

"That's because she's my baby," Shannon stated. "Comes naturally."

"But it doesn't for everyone. Some people say that it doesn't. What if it doesn't?" he asked.

"Why wouldn't it?" she asked.

"I don't know. Sometimes it doesn't," Boone replied. But then he figured that was mostly to do with post partum depression and he wasn't really likely to get that. And he was probably just blowing things out of proportion again. He needed to trust that things would happen on their own. But that wasn't really in his nature. He was used to taking control of situations and chasing up results. He had a feeling that wasn't really the way parenthood worked though.

"I know you're probably feeling really anxious right now but it's amazing how things just slow down once you actually have them in your arms. You can read all the books and you can talk to as many people as you want but at the end of the day you just have to go with your instincts, because you do know what to do, you just don't know it yet," Shannon explained.

"What happened to us?" Boone asked.

"What?" Shannon asked, furrowing her brow at him.

"We turned into grown ups," Boone stated.

"You were always a grown up," Shannon stated. "I don't remember you ever doing anything immature, not even when you were a kid. You were always lecturing me and telling me how to do stuff. Trust me, this fatherhood thing is gonna be a doddle for you."

"I acted like a grown up but I so wasn't," Boone told her. "I was totally lost, I didn't know what I was doing. Which actually I don't now so maybe stuff hasn't changed that much."

"Stuff's changed a lot, Boone," Shannon insisted. "If you came to me three and a half years ago and told me this is where I was gonna be I would have laughed in your face."

"If I told you anything three and a half years ago you would have laughed in my face," Boone pointed out. "That's how our relationship worked, remember? You acted like a spoilt brat and I acted like some surrogate father figure."

"Yeah, look at us now," Shannon smiled. "And, for the record, even though our relationship was pretty screwed up back then, you always did a great job of taking care of me. You did step into a father role after my dad died and you did it well. So I don't think you need to be worrying about anything. One thing about you, Boone, you always step up to the challenge."

After Adam died, Boone did feel responsible for looking after Shannon, if only to protect her from Sabrina. But they both knew there was also a hell of a lot more to it than that, that he wanted to be near Shannon for another reason too, that he wanted to look after her to a different end, so he didn't feel like he could completely trust his instincts in this situation with the instincts you needed to be a real father to a real child.

"Thanks, Shan," he replied. "I thought I was kind of cramping your style."

"Well, that too," she smirked. "But I still think you'll be okay. And parents are supposed to be embarrassing, right?"

"I think me and Jack will have that down," Boone replied. "I mean, can you imagine the 'how come you've got two daddies but no mommy?' questions that are gonna arise from fellow kindergarteners?"

"Don't worry about that," Shannon said, rolling her eyes a little. "Alternative couples are all the rage. Little miss 'I have a mommy and a daddy and they're still married and everything' will probably be feeling left out. Everyone's gay and divorced and remarried nowadays. Take a look at how we met."

"Remarriage is one thing, gay marriage is quite another," Boone commented.

"I really don't think it's a huge factor," she told him. "You and Jack love each other and you love the kid and that's all that matters. A lot of straight couples don't have that much to offer a baby."

"But kids need female role models too," Boone said.

"They've got an aunt Shannon, haven't they?" she replied. Boone smiled at her. "And a cousin Zara. They need any girl stuff you just send them my way."

"Thanks, Shan. That's a really sweet offer," he said.

"Well, I mean it," she replied.

Okay, so maybe he should stop worrying about all these worst case scenarios. He and Jack had a lot to offer a baby and the whole thing didn't look that hard. Sure, it would be an adjustment but Boone was good at adjusting to the needs of others. And he knew how to deal with things one bit at a time, all you had to do was take things as they came. He could prioritise and organise and make sure that a number of complicated arrangements came together perfectly and that office politics never took over what needed to get done in the day. Which wasn't quite the same as raising a child but he could use some of those skills to get the job done.

And it's not like he was on his own anyway. Jack would know about all the technical details that needed addressing. Which he realised made his baby sound like a temperamental sports car but terminology was never his strong point. He and Jack complemented each other so they were sure to complement each other's child rearing skills too. And if Jack knew something he didn't then that didn't matter. That was good. It was better than Jack knowing the exact same things as him and them drawing a blank on some vital bit of information as they try to settle their child down at two in the morning. So Jack knew some stuff and Boone knew some stuff and Shannon knew some girl stuff should girl stuff be needed.

So Boone could do this. Now he just needed a baby.


	15. Chapter 15

"Have you ever delivered a baby?" Boone asked, his nose once again in that stupid pregnancy book. It was nice that he was so into this but sometimes Jack wanted to hide the thing so they could talk about something else for a change. Especially in bed. 

"Yeah," Jack replied, not looking up from his own book.

"Is it hard?" Boone continued.

Jack looked at him. "Delivering a baby?" he asked. "Not from my end. It's the woman who's got the challenge, not me."

"So it's not that complicated, then?"

"Are you looking to have a go yourself?" Jack queried, wondering exactly where Boone was going with this.

"No," Boone replied, giving him a look. "But for a doctor it's pretty straight forward?"

"Boone, childbirth is a natural process, women are quite capable of doing it on their own without the assistance of any medical staff. We're just there to guide things along. We're only really needed if something goes wrong," Jack explained.

Which reminded him, of course, of what went wrong with Kimberley. It still managed to surprise him how these thoughts would keep creeping up on him like this. He found himself thinking about when they brought Sarah in with bleeding and he'd taken over the ER and started yelling at everyone who was trying to help him and ordering the other doctors to let him deal with it. They paged his father who had to haul him out of the room and he collapsed in the corridor, crying like an idiot. And when he returned to work the next week everyone was walking on eggshells around him. Just like when he got back from the island.

"So even a less than par doctor could do it?" Boone asked.

"Boone, what are you going on about?" Jack said, shaking his head.

Boone looked annoyed. "I want our baby to be safe."

"So what does that have to do with all this?" Jack asked him.

"Do you think Dr. Hamilton's a good doctor?" Boone wondered.

"Yeah, I don't see why not," Jack replied.

"Not exactly a glowing recommendation, is it?" Boone pointed out.

"I'm not familiar with the guy, I don't know his work. From what I've seen with Tayla I have no reason to doubt him, I'd say he's been pretty solid throughout the treatment," Jack answered.

"Huh," Boone mumbled, looking back to his book.

"Why? What's going on?" Jack asked him.

"Nothing," Boone shrugged.

Jack rolled his eyes. Right, did Boone really think he didn't know when he was lying? Probably not. He was probably hoping to get caught out so someone else would start the conversation for him, which usually happened if Boone thought it was something they were gonna argue about, knowing the 'you started it' thing couldn't be thrown back in his face. Jack considered letting it rest to see what other amusing hints Boone would give but he'd really rather just get it over with.

"Just tell me so we can go to sleep," Jack requested.

Sure enough Boone put his book down and rolled onto his side to look at Jack. "I don't trust Dr. Hamilton," he said.

"You don't trust him?" Jack asked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Okay, maybe_ trust_ is the wrong word," Boone mused. "I don't like him."

Jack tried not to show his amusement. "You don't like him?"

"I don't want him to deliver our baby. I don't like that he does anything with our baby," Boone said. "Which I know sounds stupid, by the way, but there's something about the guy."

"I really don't know what you're talking about, Boone," Jack shook his head.

"Why don't you do it?" Boone suddenly suggested.

"Why don't I do what?" Jack asked. Sometimes Boone could come seriously out of left field.

"Why don't you deliver the baby?" Boone clarified.

"Me?" Jack asked. He'd never thought of that.

"Yeah, you should totally do it," Boone stated, getting excited. He moved a little closer to Jack. "You said you've done it before and that it's not all that hard. Plus, I trust you. I think you should do it."

That wasn't actually a bad idea and Jack couldn't quite believe it hadn't occurred to him before. But since getting back from the island he'd become re-accustomed to the fact that he wasn't actually the only person with medical skills around and that it was best to let specialists do their jobs, so he'd automatically taken a back seat to Dr. Hamilton and become little more than a patient. But now that Boone had brought it up, why didn't he deliver the baby?

"That sounds like a pretty good idea," Jack replied.

Boone smiled widely at him. "Really?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, I think we should go with it."

"That is so great," Boone said enthusiastically. "We can be like a team. You do the below the waist stuff and I can do the above the waist stuff."

Jack smiled at him. It was amazing how squeamish Boone could be considering all that time he'd spent covered in blood and open wounds. "Okay, deal," he agreed.

Boone gave him a smile in return. "That's good. I feel better now." He moved closer again and threw an arm over Jack, resting his head on his shoulder.

"You been worrying about things?" Jack asked.

"Not worrying. I just want everything to be organised. I just want to know what's going to happen when and who's going to do them and how," he explained. "I like to have a plan of action."

"If I looked on your laptop I'd find a project analysis for this baby, wouldn't I?" Jack teased. Well, actually, he was fairly sure it would be true.

Boone gave him a sarcastic look. "You have to be prepared for this kind of thing," he insisted. And side stepped the question in the process Jack noted.

"I agree," Jack said. "But there's prepared and then there's Boone Carlyle."

"You'd be lost without," Boone bantered. "Your date book alone would be a nightmare of a mess. You'd never find anything in the house. You'd forget appointments. You'd have to do your own washing."

"I _do_ do my own washing," Jack stated.

"I do your washing," Boone insisted.

"You sometimes do my washing. And sometimes I do yours. In your bid to not be a total housewife you tend to skip out on the chores," Jack replied.

Boone lifted his head and raised his eyebrows at Jack. "First of all, I'm not a housewife."

"I know, that's what I said," Jack pointed out.

"And secondly, I do not skip out on the chores. Sometimes I'm too busy to do the chores but as I'm not a housewife the chores are not my sole responsibility so therefore I cannot skip out on them," Boone went on.

"Fine, fine," Jack said.

He knew Boone wasn't really mad, they were just joking around, but sometimes even light-hearted fights with Boone could take it out of him. And he liked Boone's head resting on his shoulder, there was something rather reassuring about it. And sure enough, feeling suitably subdued and obviously believing he'd won and had the right to throw it in Jack's face whenever he wanted, he settled back down and replaced his head to it's resting place.

Jack put his book down on the bedside table and turned off his lamp. Boone's was still on Jack considered asking Boone to turn it off but when he looked down at him he'd already closed his eyes. Jack could sleep with the light on. Gave him more time to look at Boone anyway.


	16. Chapter 16

"Do you know what we haven't done in forever?" Boone asked.

"So many things, but I can't imagine you'd want to do any of them right now," Jack replied, looking up from the bills. The bills that he probably didn't know what he was doing with. Well, no, that was unfair, Boone was fairly sure Jack would have done his own bills before, it's just Boone would have done them quicker. But Jack thought he was helping out so Boone was happy to let him.

"We haven't had a campfire," Boone said.

"Well, no, because we have a house now and a stove where we can cook our food," Jack stated. Which was quite valid but he was totally missing the point.

"We should have one," Boone suggested. "Tonight."

"You wanna have a campfire?" Jack asked.

"Yeah. We got all that firewood for the open fire that we never use cos we live in California and how often did we really think that was gonna come in handy?" Boone said.

"Your idea," Jack pointed out.

"And we have that patio at the end of the yard," Boone continued. "Fire safe. So, what you think?"

Jack nodded a little. "Yeah, could be cool," he replied. "We could call up Shannon and Sayid, see if they want to come round, bring Zara."

"No," Boone said. "Much as I love them, just me and you. We might not have a whole lot of me and you time left so I want you to myself." He stopped. "That came out wrong, didn't it?"

Jack smiled and shook his head. "I know what you mean. Baby's due in three weeks so pretty much anytime now we could be parents and things are going to change. I know you don't mean it's gonna be worse, just different."

"Yeah, different," Boone echoed. Slight understatement. But he was definitely sticking with the not worse. But having Jack to himself was kind of important to him right now, he wanted to make the most of their time together pre-baby. He wasn't sure if that was selfish or not.

"So, you wanna have a campfire and remember simpler times," Jack mused.

"Simpler times?" Boone laughed a little. "I don't think I've ever heard our stint on the island referred to like that before."

"A lot of stuff was simpler," Jack stated.

"I find Walmart simpler than hunting boar personally, but that's just me," Boone smiled. But he knew what Jack meant, he meant relationships. And not just romantic relationships, any relations between people on the island. People were stuck together and they bonded and they got on with it. And everybody knew everybody and there were no temptations and no distractions.

So Boone built them a campfire, something he was pretty experienced at by now. Sure, it'd been a while, but when Boone learnt a skill it didn't fade quickly. He was just throwing another log on when Jack came out from the house, standing next to him.

"Looks good," he said.

Boone nodded. "Yeah." He turned to face Jack and noticed that he had his hands behind his back. "Are you hiding something?"

Jack smiled at him. "Nothing gets passed you, does it?" he joked. "Good job you're not as dumb as you look cos being that good-looking makes you look like an airhead."

Boone wasn't sure if he should be insulted by that. He hoped he didn't come across as an airhead, that would be embarrassing. But Jack also said he was good-looking so he was willing to let it go. He looked back towards Jack's hands. "So what do you have?" he asked.

Jack produced a bag of marshmallows. "Thought we could toast them," he suggested.

Boone smiled. "Now that is one thing that was always missing on the island."

"Yeah, I remembered you telling me that one night. It was when you were injured and you couldn't leave the camp and after sundown all you could do was stare at the campfire all night. Said you might be able to bear it if you had some marshmallows. When you mentioned having a campfire it struck me that we never did get round to toasting marshmallows together."

"You're the sweetest guy in the world, you know that?" Boone asked, knowing he sounded like a total dweeb but not really being able to care right now.

Jack smiled. "You bring that out in me."

"Well then we're lucky we found each other, huh?" Boone responded.

"Yeah," Jack said. "We really are."

They looked at each other and Boone had an urge to cut the evening short and take Jack upstairs now but he'd gone to all the trouble of building the fire and there were marshmallows that needed toasting.

"We need sticks," Boone said. Jack looked at him blankly. "To toast the marshmallows," he clarified.

"Right, okay, let me find some," Jack replied, handing the bag to Boone and going in search.

Boone sat cross-legged by the edge of the fire as Jack returned with a couple of twigs, taking a seat next to him. They put their marshmallows into the flames and sat in silence for a minute.

"Do you remember the first time we had sex?" Jack asked.

Boone laughed a little but didn't look away from the fire. "Why do you ask like that? Like I'd forget?"

Jack shrugged but didn't continue. Boone turned the marshmallow in the flame, trying to get an even finish. He pulled it out of the fire and prodded at it a second before popping it in his mouth. Melty and delicious and just how he remembered from when he was a kid.

"I put it off for a long time," Jack said. Boone looked at him, wondering what the hell he was talking about. "Sex," Jack explained simply. Boone nodded and set up another marshmallow. "And it wasn't anything to do with you, I wanted you, believe me. I just didn't want to be a virgin again. You get to a certain age and you think you've pretty much done everything."

He stopped again, taking the marshmallow out of the flame. He looked at it but didn't make a move to eat it, just stared, twirling it around. Boone looked at him and Jack made eye contact, giving him that smile that made Boone feel at home.

"I don't know how you put up with it," Jack continued finally. "If I'd been going out with someone that long and they didn't want to have sex with me I think I'd be getting pretty annoyed."

Boone looked down and smiled. "I was just happy you were still letting me kiss you," he said. "I wasn't expecting a whole lot else to be honest. All that stuff was a bonus."

"Well I'm sorry I ever held back with you," Jack said. "All because I was too proud to ask for a little help adjusting my technique."

"I think your technique's just fine," Boone assured him, raising his eyebrows.

"Boys are different from girls," Jack stated simply.

For a second Boone panicked. But only for a second, which was a vast improvement. He knew Jack didn't really mean anything by that. He was revealing his own shortcomings, not commenting on Boone's. And different didn't always mean bad, that was the whole point.

"Campfire's are romantic," Boone smiled. "That's what you said to me. And I thought, God, that's such a lame line. But then I thought, right, like Jack would be using a line, Jack really has better things to do with his time than me."

Jack looked at him. "I'm sorry I made you think that."

"You didn't make me think that," Boone assured him. "I made me think that. The whole time we were on the island I figured the only reasons we were together were circumstantial, it was convenient. I never thought you'd really pick me, not seriously. I was around. But then Kate was around too so I could never quite work out why me and not her. But I figured you probably liked her too much and you were waiting to have a real relationship with her after we got rescued or something."

"I never liked Kate," Jack said. "Okay, so she's hot and she's smart and confident and she was a great help on the island but I just never thought of her like that. Which is kind of weird cos I guess I thought I would. And I tried at the beginning but it just wasn't there. Not with Kate."

"Yeah, we're idiots, aren't we?" Boone pointed out.

"What?" Jack asked.

"You didn't want to consummate our relationship, not because you actually didn't want to, but because you didn't want to be bad at something, and I didn't believe that you really gave a crap about me," Boone explained.

"Yeah, we are idiots," Jack agreed.

"Hey, Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"If we were still on the island, do you think we would ever have sorted any of this out? If we never got rescued do you think we would have made it? I mean, we only really sorted out all the major kinks we'd been ignoring since we got back. Mostly my kinks admittedly..." Boone trailed off.

"I happen to be a fan of your kinks," Jack smiled.

"But seriously, do you think we would ever have sat down and addressed all the stuff that needed work?" Boone asked.

"I don't know," Jack admitted. "Probably not."

Boone nodded. It might not have been the answer he wanted to hear but he knew it was the truth. "Shannon said that for her it was the perfect time to get rescued," he told Jack. "Her relationship with Sayid was about as solid as it was going to get and she'd come to terms with the pregnancy, something that would never have occurred back in civilisation, let alone been allowed to carry on for six months."

"Yeah, the timing was pretty spot on for the two of them," Jack conceded.

"So maybe it was right for us too," Boone suggested. "Maybe it was right for all of us, all the survivors. Maybe we were done."

Jack turned to look at him. "Done?"

"Maybe we were all where we needed to be in our lives. Maybe we were just there long enough for us to find our paths in life. I mean, you gotta admit, us islanders, I think we'd all been knocked off course somewhere along the way, maybe we just needed to find our footing before we got on with the rest of our lives."

Jack stared at him, his brow furrowed, thinking hard. His expression then turned into a small smile. "You spent far too much time in the jungle with Locke, you know that?"

Boone smiled back at him. "Maybe you're right."

He shifted closer to Jack and rested a hand on his thigh. Jack placed an arm round his waist and pulled him to lean against him. Boone was more than happy to oblige and rested his head on Jack's shoulder. He didn't care how he got here, he'd go to hell and back to spend another second here with Jack.

"I love you," he heard Jack mumble into his hair as he place a kiss on top of his head.

Boone smiled. "Love you too."

Jack rested his head on top of Boone's as he held onto him tightly. Boone would go further than hell and back. 


	17. Chapter 17

Bows or twists? Why did pasta come in different shapes anyway? It was all the same stuff. Jack didn't really care what it looked like, the point of food wasn't really to look pretty. But Boone would probably have a view on it so maybe it was just safer to wait until he came back.

"Jack."

Jack looked up slowly and froze, the situation feeling ever so slightly surreal. "Sarah," he managed eventually.

She smiled at him a little. "Hey."

"Hi," Jack said, not really sure what to make of the situation. And Sarah was looking at him like she felt much the same way. "So, how are you?" he asked.

"Good. I'm good," she replied. "You?"

"Me? Yeah, I'm good. Good," he replied.

She nodded a little. "Good."

Sarah looked different. Her hair was longer and her face was a little prettier than he remembered. And she looked healthy, which she really hadn't done for the last six months of their marriage.

"So, I hear you have a boyfriend now," she said.

"Yeah," Jack replied. "You too."

"I think you having a boyfriend is a little more noteworthy, Jack," Sarah pointed out.

Jack nodded. "Yeah, that's, erm... I guess that's true."

"So, how'd that happen?" she asked.

"I don't really know," Jack replied. "It was a weird island." Which was true really. He still didn't have the whole thing worked out in his own head, let alone trying to translate it to his ex-wife.

Sarah smiled a little and her gaze fell down to the contents of his cart. "You have a baby?" she asked.

Jack looked down and saw the diapers and baby wipes. "Oh, erm, not yet," he said. "We're due in a couple of weeks so we're just stocking up, getting prepared."

"How does that work?" she asked. "Neither of you having a uterus and all."

"Surrogate," Jack explained.

Sarah nodded. "Well, that's really great," she said. "I know you like kids. Congratulations."

"Thanks," he smiled.

"They don't have any of your coffee so I went with this one, it's basically the same stuff," Boone said as he walked up to them and put it in the cart. He then looked at Jack, clearly sensing the strange atmosphere. Then, finally, he looked over at Sarah and seemed a little shell shocked. "You're Sarah," he said after a few seconds, sounding a little dazed.

How the hell did he know who Sarah was? Jack thought. He didn't remember ever having any photos around. He probably saw the wedding photo at his mothers, Jack realised. God, why couldn't she have just taken that down? But then he was being spared an embarrassing introduction so maybe he should count his blessings.

"Yeah," Sarah replied, clearly wondering the same thing Jack was.

Boone turned back to Jack and saw the questioning look on his face. "Okay, I wasn't snooping, but when we moved into the new house, I was unpacking your stuff while you were at work and I found your wedding album," he explained. "So I kind of had a look through it." Jack nodded. Boone turned back to Sarah. "You looked really pretty."

"Thanks," she replied, clearly not sure what to say. "Sorry, I don't know your name."

"Boone," he replied. "My name's Boone."

"It's nice to meet you, Boone," she said.

The two of them shook hands and Jack felt as if his two worlds were colliding. Which was stupid because Sarah hadn't been his world for a long time. Boone, now Boone was his world, but Sarah? Not so much. And even seeing her now, happy and healthy and pretty, he didn't feel the urge to claim her back, not even in the past tense.

"What's your boyfriend called?" Jack asked her.

"Fiancé," Sarah corrected, holding up a hand with a diamond ring. "He's my fiancé. His name's Mike."

"Congratulations," Jack said, looking at the ring. "Nicer than the one I gave you."

"Yeah, I'm hoping for third time lucky," Sarah told him.

Right, this was the third engagement she'd been through, it would be the second marriage once she made it up the aisle. Jack felt sorry for her, the first two didn't end very nicely. He should know, he was around for both break-ups.

"Anyway, I should probably be getting on," Sarah said, shaking her head a little. "Let you guys finish your shopping too."

"Yeah, well, it was nice running into you," Jack said.

"Good luck with the baby," she said. "I think you'll be a great dad."

"Thanks," Jack replied. "I think you'll make a good wife."

Sarah smiled at him. "I would hope I made a good wife the first time around."

Jack wanted to tell her that she was a good wife, especially considering the circumstances, but Boone was stood right next to him and, even if he didn't have a boyfriend that tended to take things hugely personally and rather badly, it seemed a little wrong. So he just gave her a smile. He got the feeling she knew how Jack really viewed her anyway, even after everything that had gone on between them.

"Maybe I'll see you around," she said, starting to walk away.

"Bye," Jack said.

He and Boone remained in silence for a few seconds after she was out of sight.

"She's still pretty," Boone said.

Jack wasn't sure if he was jealous or just making a general observation, he'd kept his voice fairly flat. "Yeah," he replied, hoping that it was the right response or that he'd at least said it ambiguously enough for it to sound like the right response.

"You have good taste, you see," Boone said, looking at him.

Jack smiled. Boone was taking this rather well. He was tempted to comment on it but he didn't want to jinx the situation. If he brought it up Boone might get defensive and be all insulted and refuse to talk to Jack for the rest of the day. It had happened before. Though not for a pretty long time now.

"Do you ever miss her?" Boone asked.

Oh God, that was a loaded question if ever Jack heard one. What was the right answer supposed to be? If it was 'no' then that means he'd thrown away years of marriage without a second thought and he could easily do the same to Boone. If it was 'yes' then Boone didn't have his whole heart. But maybe you can never have someone's whole heart. Jack knew he didn't really have Boone's whole heart. He had the main bit, the big bit, the best bit, but he didn't have it all. There was a little bit for Sapphire and there was a little bit for Shannon and there were probably other little pieces for people who Jack didn't know about and probably never would.

"Not as much as I thought I would when it all fell apart," Jack admitted. "I worked all the time and I never saw her and then one day I came home and she handed me the divorce papers. And I thought I'd miss her. But it was surprisingly easy not to. And then I felt like the worst person in the world."

"Maybe you didn't miss her because you'd already come to terms with it," Boone suggested. "Maybe you came to terms with it when..."

Boone couldn't finish but Jack knew the end of the sentence was '...when you lost Kimberley.' And Jack realised that he was probably right. He knew on that day that he'd lost more than his baby but he didn't want to admit it so he just didn't address it. When it was finally over maybe he'd spent so long dreading it that it couldn't possibly have lived up to the bad dreams he had on the nights he managed to sleep.

Jack looked down at the cart. "I don't like that coffee."

Boone rolled his eyes. "It's practically the same thing. It's probably picked by the same illegal workers," he said. "I would have thought that you, of all people, would be open to new experiences."

Jack couldn't help but smile. He nodded a little. "New experiences," he echoed. "I think you've introduced me to enough of them."

"Were there any you didn't like?" Boone asked. Jack shook his head. "So trust me."

Boone was a good salesman. Jack could see that he would have been brilliant at his old job, selling couples products for their big day. "Okay, I'll try the coffee," Jack agreed. "But if I don't like it you have to make it up to me by doing something I do like," he bargained. "Deal?"

Boone smiled at him. "Jack, I'd do those things for free any day," he replied.

Jack smiled back, and was starting to get an idea of how he wanted to spend the afternoon. 


	18. Chapter 18

Boone wasn't quite awake but he wasn't quite asleep either, which was one of his favourite places to be. Well, apart from in Jack's arms, obviously. But Jack's arms was out right now, Jack's arms being with Jack at a medical conference in Austin so Boone would just have to settle. And next week he'd have Jack home with him all the time anyway. He kind of wished Jack hadn't given in and said he'd go to the conference though, Boone was fairly sure they would have given him the time off anyway, but Jack said he felt like he owed them and Boone understood that feeling all too well. 

Then the phone rang. Boone hoped it was Jack with a booty call. Well, it had been - he glanced at the clock - a whole four hours since they'd spoken. He reached over and picked up the phone. "Hello?" he muttered sleepily.

"Boone?"

It took him a second to place the voice. And when he did he was a little confused. "Tayla?" he asked. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong," she assured him. "But I've been having contractions for a while now and I think it's getting to the time we should be heading to the hospital."

Boone sat up and nearly flung the phone out of his hand. "What?"

"Baby's coming," Tayla explained.

"No," Boone said, shaking his head. "No, no, no, no, no. Baby can't come now, Jack's in Austin."

"Sorry, I don't think the baby knows that, Boone," Tayla replied.

"Oh God," Boone moaned. "But you're not even due 'til next week, can't you just hold on?"

"I really don't think so," Tayla said, sounding a little bemused. "Are you gonna come pick me up?"

"I don't know how to deliver a baby," Boone stated, almost to himself.

"I meant to take me to the hospital," Tayla told him.

"No, yeah, I know, I didn't mean that," Boone explained. "Jack's supposed to deliver the baby."

"Yeah, I know, sorry," Tayla said. "We'll just have to page Dr. Hamilton."

Oh great, Boone thought, perfect. This was so not the way this was meant to be happening.

"Boone?"

"Yeah, sorry, I'll come pick you up," he said, shaking his head a little to clear it. "I have to phone Jack then I'll come pick you up. I'll be there soon."

"Okay, I'll see you in a bit then," Tayla said.

When they got to the hospital Tayla told the nurse at the desk how far apart her contractions were and they sat her in a wheelchair and thrust a clipboard at Boone.

"You need to fill this out, sir," the nurse told him.

Boone looked down at the forms. "What is this?"

"You need to fill in your wife's details and medical history," the nurse explained.

"She's not my wife, I barely know her, how am I supposed to know all this stuff?" he asked, looking at the nurse as if she was crazy. And the nurse looked back at him in much the same way which made him realise how that probably sounded.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were the father," she said.

"I am," Boone replied. "Kind of. I guess."

"Boone," Tayla called to get his attention. "I'll help you with the forms."

"Okay," he said blindly.

So they went to a room and Tayla helped Boone fill out the paperwork. But once that was done Boone started to feel ever so slightly useless and out of place. Tayla's contractions were getting worse and closer together and she seemed to be having more trouble with them.

"You know what, we should have brought your husband," Boone said, pacing slightly.

"He's watching the kids, Boone, it's fine," Tayla explained.

"I could watch the kids," Boone suggested. "He could come here and I can look after your kids." Tayla just looked at him. "I can call him. I'll go call him." He made a move to leave the room.

"Boone," Tayla called. He stopped and looked at her. "Come here." He walked back over to stand by the bed. "I'll tell you what you can do," she said as she held out her hand out to him. "You can hold my hand."

Boone looked at her hand and then back to her face. "Okay," he said. "I can do that."

So he held her hand and helped her through the next contraction. But the irony wasn't lost on him that she was actually helping him by making him feel useful, which was actually really sweet and far more than Boone would be doing if he was the one in labour right now.

Dr. Hamilton came into the room and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. "Okay, how are we doing?" he asked.

Boone just looked at him. Actually he was probably glaring but he didn't really care, he just hoped Jack would make it in time.

"I'm fine," Tayla said.

"Right, I'm just going to take a look, see how far along we are," Dr. Hamilton declared, lifting the sheet up.

Boone quickly turned to face the wall. Above the waist stuff only, that was his deal. Tayla smiled at him, obviously amused. He gave her a half smile back before going back to staring at the wall behind her.

"Okay, Tayla, you are seven centimetres dilated right now," Dr. Hamilton told her. Tayla nodded.

"Is Jack gonna make it?" Boone asked.

"I don't know, where is he?" Dr. Hamilton asked.

"Austin," Boone replied.

"Austin, Texas?" Dr. Hamilton asked.

"Uh-huh," Boone mumbled, trying to resist the urge to punch him in the face.

"Well, is he on a plane yet? Because if he's not I don't fancy his chances much. This is Tayla's fourth child so things are gonna move pretty fast here," Dr. Hamilton informed him.

Boone sighed. "I don't know where he is," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

But then Tayla had another contraction which distracted him from worrying too much about Jack. And, true to Dr. Hamilton's cocky word, things moved along quickly. Rather more quickly than Boone would have liked under the circumstances. Sure, he wanted a baby, but he wanted Jack to deliver said baby, not stupid Dr. Hamilton.

"Okay, Tayla, when you get your next contraction I want you to push for me, okay"  
Dr. Hamilton instructed.

Tayla nodded and held onto Boone's hand a little tighter as the contraction started. She moaned as she pushed down and Boone had the feeling that things were getting rather bloody if he looked the other way, but he so wasn't going to do that. So he concentrated on holding Tayla's hand and looking at the blank wall behind her head. Why did they paint hospital walls white, anyway? Surely that's the easiest way to show up dirty marks. But there weren't any marks on the wall, it was spotless, like it had been freshly painted. How could that be?

"All right, I can see the head," Dr. Hamilton declared.

"Head?" Boone asked, spinning around and wishing he hadn't. He quickly turned back to Tayla. He really needed to pay more attention here though, he totally zoned out for a minute there.

"Okay, you should be able to clear the head with another push," Dr. Hamilton told Tayla.

And sure enough, a couple of contractions later the room with filled with the sound of a screaming baby.

"It's a boy," Dr. Hamilton declared.

"Boy? It's a boy?" Boone asked.

"It's a boy," Dr. Hamilton repeated.

"Wow," was all Boone could manage.

"Congratulations," Tayla smiled at him. And Boone smiled back at her like an idiot because he wasn't sure what else to do.

"You want to cut the cord?" Dr. Hamilton asked him.

"Oh, no, I'm strictly above the waist only, that was Jack's job," Boone explained.

Tayla gave him a look. "Boone, go do it," she told him.

So Boone let go of Tayla's hand, which he wasn't really aware he was still holding until that point, and moved to where Dr. Hamilton was. There was a lot of blood and gunk and the umbilical cord which made Boone think of intestines but there was also a tiny little baby. His baby. His son. He cut the cord and the nurse wrapped his baby in a blanket and placed it in his arms. Boone felt his eyes well up as his looked into his baby's face.

"Hey," he said, smiling irresistibly. "I'm your daddy. Well, actually, I'm one of your daddies. Which is gonna confuse the hell out of you when you get older but..." he trailed off and just rocked the baby a little. He was so tiny and perfect. So absolutely fantastic.

And Shannon was right, when you actually hold your baby in your arms you see how ridiculous it is to be scared of them. Boone could do this. In fact, Boone kind of wished he'd been doing this a long time ago.


	19. Chapter 19

Jack had come to the conclusion that he really hated those people that worked the check-in desks at airports. He wasn't mad on them when it took such a huge argument for them to finally allow his father's body onto the plane in Sydney, especially when no one seemed to be able to give him a reason why it was such a problem in the first place. But now, now he felt like they were out to get him. He explained to the woman at the desk that he needed to get back to LA immediately as his baby was being born and he was supposed to be delivering it and he was told was to take a seat and they would get to him as soon as they could. Great. 

So when he finally got to the hospital he wasn't actually looking to deliver a baby anymore than to at least find one safely delivered by someone else.

He eventually found Boone in the family room cooing at what he could only assume was their baby and tears started to well up in his eyes. He stood in the doorway for a second and just watched Boone, a huge smile on his face. He took a step into the room.

"Hey."

Boone looked up and smiled at him. "Hey. You're late."

Jack looked at the baby. "So I see." He went and sat next to Boone and got a better look at the baby. "Hi there," he cooed. "Everything went okay then?" he asked Boone.

"Yeah, it was fine, it was great," Boone gushed. "I held Tayla's hand and I got to cut the cord and it was just amazing, Jack."

"So I guess Dr. Hamilton _can_ deliver a baby," Jack said.

Boone gave him a look.

Jack looked back down at the baby. "So, erm... is it a boy or a girl?" he asked.

"Oh, right, yeah, sorry," Boone said, shaking his head a little. He held the baby towards Jack a little. "Jack, I would like you to meet Noah Christian Carlyle."

Jack looked down at his baby son. "Hi, Noah," he said, stroking the side of his face with a finger. "He's really... he's gorgeous."

"Yeah, he is, isn't he?" Boone smiled. "And he's totally healthy and everything. They did a bunch of tests and stuff and they said he's doing great."

"You mind if I hold him?" Jack asked.

"Oh, sorry, yeah, of course," Boone said. "You have to be careful with him though cos he's really delicate. And you have to support his neck." Jack just looked at him, God Boone was adorable. "But you're a doctor so you probably know all that already, right?" Boone realised.

Jack nodded his head. "Right."

"Okay," Boone said.

He carefully handed Noah over to Jack who supported him carefully in his arms. He looked down at the baby and he couldn't quite believe it. He'd been waiting so long for this moment and now that it was finally here it was so much different from what he'd expected. It was so much better. It was like time had stopped and nothing existed outside of this room. And quite frankly, Jack wouldn't care if anything existed outside of this room or not, he had everything he could ever want right here. He had his family.

Jack looked back at Boone. "Did you freak out?"

Boone looked away from Noah and met Jack's eyes. "What?"

"When I wasn't there. When the baby was coming. Did you freak out?"

"No." Jack looked at him. "Okay, a little."

Jack smiled. "I'm sorry I couldn't get here any sooner. I really tried. I went straight down to the airport but I couldn't get a flight and nobody seemed to care, it was a nightmare," he explained.

"Doesn't matter now," Boone said. "I did okay. And Tayla's like the most amazing woman ever."

"Did she do us proud?" Jack asked.

"I don't think I was holding her hand so much as she was holding my hand. I think she was the one trying to make me feel better," Boone smiled.

"Sorry, I guess that was my job," Jack said.

"Stop it, I said it didn't even matter," Boone insisted. "Look, we have a baby, who really cares how it got here?"

Boone had a point. They did have a baby. Which was ever so slightly mind blowing. And Jack was a little bit jealous that Boone got to be there and he had to sit in an airport playing 'I'm invisible' with apparently all airline staff but Jack was still sat here holding his son now so he didn't suppose any of that really mattered anymore. Austin felt like a million miles away right now, it felt almost like another life. Which he guessed it kind of was. That was his life before being a father.

"How's Tayla doing?" Jack asked.

"She's fine. She's sleeping," Boone replied. "That's why I brought him in here, he was crying, I didn't want to wake her up."

"I should really thank her later," Jack thought out loud.

"Oh, I did a lot of thanking, I think she gets the message," Boone said.

"It's a really amazing thing she did, isn't it?" Jack stated.

"Tayla's something special, all right," Boone replied.

"So you don't think she's a money grabbing baby seller anymore?" Jack asked.

Boone smiled a little. "I was kind of hoping you'd forget I said that."

"Don't worry, I have a special place in my head where I store all the stupid things you say," Jack told him.

"God, that must take up most of your brain by now," Boone replied.

"You don't say as many stupid things as you think you do," Jack assured him.

"Sometimes I talk before I think first," Boone persisted.

"Yeah, and sometimes when you do that you say the sweetest things," Jack told him. Boone rewarded him with a cute as hell smile. "And then sometimes you wind up being insulting and demeaning."

"I'm glad you're back," Boone said. Jack wasn't sure if that was a sly change of subject or if it meant Boone was rather fond of Jack's teasing. "I missed you. I missed you before the whole baby thing. I don't think you should ever go away, I think you should stay with me all the time. With me and Noah."

"I missed you too," Jack told him. "And don't worry, I'm not going anywhere for a long time. That conference was the last thing I had to do for work so I'm all freed up now."

"Are they gonna be mad?" Boone asked. "That you skipped out on the conference. You weren't supposed to be back for two days."

"I don't really care," Jack replied and found that he really meant it. Right now he couldn't imagine ever wanting to go back to the hospital again, not if it meant leaving Boone and Noah. No, right now he just wanted to go back home with his boyfriend and his baby and just hole himself up. Not that he could do that, Noah would have to stay here tonight of course, and then when they did go home there'd be lots of supply runs and such like to deal with. And a lot of visitors. But visitors he could deal with, he couldn't wait to show Noah off.

"I should phone my mom," Jack said absently, though he really didn't want to move right now.

"Yeah, I need to phone Sabrina," Boone agreed. "I called Shannon already. She yelled at me for waking her up. She congratulated me eventually though."

Jack smiled. "Sounds like Shannon." He gazed down at Noah. "He's so perfect."

"Yeah," Boone agreed. "He has your eyes. And he has the cutest little nose. And his fingers and toes, they're so tiny. He's like a miniature version of a grown-up."

Jack looked at him. "He _is_ a miniature version of a grown-up."

Boone gave him a look. "You know what I mean."

Jack looked back at Noah. Yeah, he knew exactly what Boone meant. Jack was responsible for a whole other life now. And not in the way that he was responsible for other people's lives at work, in a way that was much more amazing and much more powerful than that. Being a father was much more important to the world than being a doctor. It was much more important to Jack anyway.

So, here it is, this is what it feels like when you have a baby. Jack had been wondering.


	20. Chapter 20

Noah was so cute when he was sleeping. Boone looked down at the baby in his arms and he couldn't imagine a better feeling than this. But there was a slight problem with this picture. Noah was happy now but Boone knew that the second he put him down he was going to start crying again. It was like some kind of vicious cycle - Noah was crying in his crib so Boone picked him up and calmed him down and then he put him back in the crib where he promptly started screaming again. This had been going on for what felt like hours and Boone wasn't really sure how you solved that problem. He felt slightly like he was in a battle of wits. Which he knew was ridiculous because surely newborn babies don't have that many wits about them anyway. 

"You okay in here?"

Boone turned around to see Jack entering the room. "Yeah, I'm fine, so long as I don't ever want to use my arms again," he replied.

"You can't put him down?" Jack asked.

"Oh, I can put him down," Boone nodded. "He just screams his head off every time I do."

Jack smiled at him. "Give him here."

Boone carefully handed the baby over to Jack. Noah stirred slightly but settled back down as soon as he was safely in Jack's arms. Noah looked even cuter when he was sleeping in Jack's arms, Boone thought. That way he got to look at Noah and Jack at the same time, which is pretty much the only thing he ever wanted to look at ever again.

Jack rocked Noah slightly and made sure he was sleeping comfortably before he leaned forward and placed him carefully in the crib. He pulled his arms away and there was a second where Boone thought it was going to work but then, as Jack pulled fully away, Noah started up again.

"Told you so" Boone said.

Jack gave him a look before turning back to Noah. He picked him up again and started rocking him. "Hey, come on, you're just sleepy, you need to go to sleep."

"He was asleep," Boone felt the need to point out.

"Well we just need to make sure he's in a deep sleep before we put him down," Jack said.

"He knows when you put him down, Jack," Boone replied. Jack continued pacing with Noah and Boone watched them for a second. "Sayid said you need to learn when to leave them alone and when they really need you, that way they only cry when they actually want something."

"That's a very nice theory," Jack responded.

"Worked for them," Boone shrugged. "Zara's a good kid. She's disciplined."

Jack nodded. Boone was fairly sure that none of this was getting through. Not that it was particularly getting through to him either if he was honest. Sayid made raising a child sound easy as pie but Boone couldn't quite understand how you could just let a child cry in order to teach it that no one was coming. If you did that then how could you count on them crying if something really was wrong? Running every time they cried could lead to getting a spoilt attention seeker but ignoring them could lead to them being introverted and withdrawn. Neither of those options sounded great. He guessed he and Jack would just have to find their own middle ground.

"We'll work it out," Boone said.

"What?" Jack asked, looking up at him. Oh, right, he wasn't in on that whole internal monologue thing.

"I dunno, just... Everyone's got their own system, right?" Boone replied. "Shannon and Sayid did it one way but I guess we have to find our own."

"I think we're doing okay," Jack responded.

"Yeah, no, I know," Boone said. "I just mean that we're still a little new at this, that's all."

Jack nodded. "Yeah, it's all new," he admitted. "But it's new in the best way. It's new like you were new. Like everything you ever showed me was new. Pretty much everything we did together was a first for me."

"Pretty much?" Boone asked.

"I say 'pretty much' cos I'm not just talking about the sex," Jack replied.

"You can't talk about..._ that_ in front of the baby," Boone exclaimed, checking Noah for a reaction. Which he knew was ridiculous, he didn't even know what the English language was yet, let alone what 'sex' meant, but it felt wrong anyway.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Noah doesn't even know his name, he has no idea what we're talking about," he pointed out. "And he's asleep."

"That's not the point," Boone told him. "Kids don't want to hear about their parents having... s.e.x."

"He doesn't even know what sex is..." Jack began.

"Stop saying that word," Boone cut in. "Do you want that to be his first word? Do you not think that would be a little embarrassing?"

"He's a fair way off his first word, Boone," Jack stated.

"Yeah, but if you continue to talk about sex all the time..." he stopped. "Oh God, now you got me doing it."

"Boone, calm down," Jack instructed. "You need to relax."

Yeah, Jack was right. In fact everything he'd just said was right. But Noah was going to pick up on things so Boone thought they should start thinking about what they wanted him to hear and what they didn't. He fairly sure sex went in the 'didn't' column.

Boone looked down at Noah. "I don't think he heard us anyway."

"No, I think we're safe," Jack smiled.

"I just really don't want to traumatise the kid," Boone stated. "I mean, he's going to have enough problems as it is."

Jack looked at him. "Having two fathers instead of a father and a mother doesn't have to be a problem," he replied levelly.

Boone couldn't tell if he'd offended him or not but he guessed that he had. "No," Boone said, shaking his head a little. "No, it doesn't. It's different though."

"Your mother pretty raised you by yourself after your dad left, right?" Jack asked. "Until you were ten."

"Yeah," Boone replied, realising where Jack was going with this.

"Was it a problem that you didn't have a dad?"

"It was a problem at father-son baseball games at school," Boone replied. "My mom sent me with a member of the home help, which was so embarrassing. But a bunch of the kids at my school, their fathers were so busy working that, even if they were in the picture, they couldn't be bothered to show up. I don't think half the kids knew if my father was absent or just really important."

"Can you play baseball?" Jack asked.

Boone looked at him with a bemused little smile. "I'm not great at it."

"Okay, I'll take father-son baseball then," Jack replied.

"I think you're missing my point," Boone stated.

"No, I think you're missing the point," Jack insisted. "Noah's not going to be missing out on anything."

"He's not going to be missing out on anything that I missed out on," Boone agreed. "But what about the other stuff? The stuff my mom taught me? My mom taught me how to dance, probably so that I wouldn't show her up. And my mom taught me how to make the chicken broth she gave me whenever I was ill, which I so didn't think she really made until I saw her do it. And my mom taught me how to write a good letter, and pick a matching colour scheme and dress to impress and organise a photo album. What about all that stuff?"

"You know how to do all that stuff now, right?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," Boone replied.

Jack shrugged. "So you can show Noah," he stated. "I really don't see what the problem is. He doesn't have to miss out on what you missed out on cos we can do that stuff for him and he doesn't have to miss out on what you had because you can pass that stuff onto him. Same with the stuff that I had, I can pass that on. So what exactly do you think he's going to miss?"

Jack had a pretty strong argument there. And he was way smarter than Boone because he'd got him to unwittingly back up his argument. There was nothing that Noah was going to miss out on when you put it like that. Boone was in a position to give Noah everything he had and everything he didn't. Besides, he knew he didn't really miss out on that much stuff and he didn't want his dad around all that much anyway, he'd never really felt a bond with him the whole five years of his life he was around. And if he didn't miss something that was around for five years then he guessed Noah wouldn't really miss something he never had.

"What if he wants to know something about girls?" Boone asked.

"Did you ever ask your mom about girls?" Jack asked.

Boone shook his head. "No."

"Me either." He looked down at Noah. "Okay, I think we should be safe now." He walked over to the crib and carefully placed him down. He slowly moved his arms away but as soon as he straightened up Noah started all over again. Jack looked a little disheartened.

"Should I try feeding him again?" Boone asked.

Jack shook his head. "He's not hungry."

"You wanna sedate him?" Boone asked in mock seriousness.

Jack looked at him and gave him a smile. "I think this is one of the times we're supposed to leave him to cry himself out."

Boone nodded but neither of them made a move to leave. "You can handle having a spoilt kid, right?" he asked.

"I deal with you everyday, don't I?" Jack responded.

Boone gave him a look before turning back to Noah. "Guess it's my turn then," he stated, leaning down to pick Noah up again.


	21. Chapter 21

Jack laid on his side and stared at the baby monitor. He wasn't quite sure why he was doing that, it didn't help him hear any better, but maybe if he missed something he could watch the little red dots fly up. But the little red dots weren't doing anything and Noah was seemingly asleep. Which was a good thing, of course it was, it beat having Noah screaming at him. But there was still the fact that Noah was only 'seemingly' asleep. Jack couldn't see Noah so he didn't know what he was doing.

Originally they were going to get one of the baby monitors with the little camera so they could watch him but Boone said that could lead to an unhealthy obsession of watching your baby from another room and Jack had agreed, sound only was better and made more sense. But here Jack was staring at some red dots, just in case they moved, and he had a feeling that wasn't so healthy either.

If he went to check on Noah then he could put his mind at rest and he wouldn't have to stare at the red dots anymore and then maybe he could get some sleep. That wasn't obsessive, that was sensible. So he slipped out of bed and headed across the hall to the nursery.

Noah was sleeping soundly and breathing rhythmically so there was really no cause for concern. Jack lightly put a his hand to Noah's chest and felt his heartbeat. Normal. See, nothing wrong at all. He felt his forehead to check his temperature. Nothing amiss there. So everything was okay. And yet Jack couldn't quite steel himself to leave the room quite yet. He leaned over the crib and gave Noah a once over with his eyes. Nothing out of place, nothing potentially hazardous, nothing to worry about at all. Just a sleeping baby which Jack should be happy to see. And he was. And yet he didn't seem to be leaving the room.

He leaned against the railing at the foot of the crib and gazed at Noah. Jack still couldn't quite believe that this baby was his, that he was a father. It was such an amazing thing, being a parent, having a little person in the world that was all yours, someone to love and care about and look after. But it also came back to the responsibility thing again. Jack never really liked being responsible for other people, despite what everyone seemed to think about him. He never asked for everyone to follow him around on the island, to come to him when they needed help, to expect him to settle disputes and come up with escape plans and work out where their next meal was coming from and why the hell they should push some stupid button that Jack didn't really think they should push in the first place. Sure, he grew into the role, but that didn't change the fact that he never appointed himself king of the island, everyone else just seemed to assume he didn't mind the role. And Jack guessed someone had to do it but some days he would have quite liked to have been just another islander.

But all that was nothing compared to this. Fatherhood. Talk about strange and foreign lands. The island from hell wasn't half this scary. Jack knew he couldn't take it if anything happened to Noah, he knew he'd break and he didn't think anyone could put him back together again, not even Boone. And he knew at the back of his mind that there was much more to his divorce from Sarah than just her losing the baby but along with that nagging feeling was the nagging feeling that if anything did go wrong with Noah then he wasn't one hundred percent that he could stick it out with Boone. Not that he didn't love Boone with everything he had, and not that he could imagine any kind of life without Boone, but he was well aware that everyone had a breaking point, a maximum amount that they could stand to lose and once you pass that point then nothing else counts for anything.

"If you wake him up I'm going to kick your ass."

Jack turned around to see Boone sleepily leaning against the door frame, reminding him of that night at Sabrina's house.

"I'm not going to wake him up," Jack assured him.

"Is he okay?" Boone asked, making a move into the room and over to where Jack was standing.

Jack turned back to look at Noah. "Yeah, he's fine," he reported. "I think he's fine. I can't find anything wrong with him."

Boone smiled a little. "Did you ever think that you can't find anything wrong with him because nothing is wrong with him?"

"Only fleetingly," Jack admitted.

"Come on, let's go back to bed," Boone suggested.

"I can't sleep, I think I'm just gonna watch him," Jack replied.

"Okay, there's so many things wrong with that I don't know where to start," Boone began. "It's stalker-ish, it's obsessive, it's an infringement of his personal space and you're seriously gonna wake him up. And that's just for starters."

"I am not going to wake him up," Jack insisted. "You're going to wake him up by coming in here and talking to me."

Boone looked like he considered been offended but thought better of it. He knew getting into an argument really would wake Noah up and then it would be his fault. He was probably storing it up so he could use it against Jack later. He really learnt a thing or two from Shannon about how to get your own way.

"Are you staying in here because you're scared something's going to happen if you're not here?" Boone asked.

Jack looked at him, a little annoyed, which he realised just made Boone know he was right. "It's not a problem unless you make it into a problem, Boone," he said, turning back to Noah.

"I think it's sweet," Boone stated, which wasn't quite what Jack was expecting. "Just remember, you're responsible for this baby but you're not solely responsible, okay?"

Jack smiled a little and turned to look at him. "Thank you."

Boone shrugged. "Just doing my job," he said. "And now I'm going back to bed cos I'm smart enough to sleep when he's asleep." He kissed Jack on the cheek. "Goodnight."

"Night," Jack said with a smile as he watched Boone leave the room. He then turned back to Noah. He put a hand on his chest to check his heartbeat again. Still normal, still beating, still doing exactly what it should be doing.

Boone was right, he should really relax about this whole situation a little more. They were a team and if something did happen, Jack wasn't to blame. Well, he knew that he wouldn't really be to blame anyway even if he was a single parent, but when bad things did happen it rarely felt like that. But he wasn't a single parent. And there was no one he'd rather raise a child with that Boone. And he didn't remember ever thinking that when he was with Sarah. 


	22. Chapter 22

"Yeah, he's a cutie," Shannon admitted, somewhat grudgingly Boone thought.

"He's gorgeous," Boone said, looking down at Noah in his arms.

"Well, y'know, look at his dad," Shannon mused. Boone smiled. "I wasn't talking about you, loser."

"That's okay, I wasn't thinking about me," Boone replied. "You wanna hold him?"

"You know I don't like kids," Shannon stated. Boone looked over to where Sayid was playing with Zara on the floor. "So I like mine, doesn't mean I like yours."

Boone rolled his eyes. Shannon still knew how to be difficult as hell when she wanted, but Boone wasn't quite sure why she wanted to be. Sure, he gave up on trying to work out the enigma that was Shannon quite a while ago now, but that didn't mean she couldn't still bug the hell out of him.

"They're not a whole lot of fun at that age," Shannon commented, looking down at Noah. "They don't do a whole lot."

"What do you expect him to do?" Boone asked.

"I just mean that it gets way better than this. In a couple of months he'll have his own personality and you can play off each other. He'll have a sense of humour and he'll have a favourite toy," Shannon explained. "Then you feel like you're really interacting with a person and not just tending to someone's needs."

"I don't feel like that," Boone pouted. But then he realised he was doing a total Shannon so he tried to stop.

Shannon sighed a little. "It feels pretty great now, right?"

"Yeah, I'd say that's an understatement," Boone replied.

"So when you start getting stuff back imagine how that's gonna feel," she said, raising her eyebrows.

Boone never really thought about having a child that way. Surely the point of having a child was to give them something, not to be given something in return. So did he give something to his parents? He was fairly sure he never gave his father anything, not that his father particularly deserved anything from him. What about Sabrina? Did he her give her anything? Well, besides three years as loyal employee and general office godsend. But did she get anything out of his childhood? Boone doubted it, she missed practically as much as his dad did. Well, no, that was unfair, she sometimes made time for him on evenings and weekends. Let's face it though, she never made a huge effort to gain anything from his childhood so he wasn't going to feel too bad about not giving her anything.

Jack came back into the room and handed Shannon her drink, taking a seat next to Boone. He leaned down to Noah. "Hey, little guy," he cooed.

Boone looked at Jack. "If you check his heartbeat then I swear to God..." he threatened good-naturedly.

Jack looked up at him. "I'm not going to check his heartbeat, I was just saying hello." He sounded a little annoyed.

Shannon looked at the pair of them. "How old is he? Five days?" Boone nodded. "Already you're arguing about what you're doing with him."

"You guys never had a difference of opinions?" Boone asked.

"No, my job was made much easier by Shannon failing to have an opinion," Sayid stated, which Boone thought was very brave of him. "About how to best raise a child that is," he added. "You ask her about Italian designers you find she has quite a lot of opinions."

"I agreed with you cos what the hell do I know?" Shannon replied. "Whatever you were doing seemed to be working so why would I butt in? You let me have all the fun bits."

"Yes, I think we make a good team," Sayid agreed, helping Zara out in her attempt to stand up. Well, dismal attempt if Boone was honest but he guessed he wasn't so perfect at everything first time around either. Or second. Or often third. Screw it, everyone had weak spots, right?

But then Boone got to wondering if he and Jack made a good team. He really wouldn't have thought Shannon and Sayid would complement each other so well when they first crashed on the island and started to get to know the other survivors. In fact Boone was sure that Shannon was just going to use him for as long as he could be useful like she did with him or when she wanted to prove her worth by getting Charlie to catch her a fish and then dropped him like a stone the second he did. And, actually, Boone still didn't really get how Shannon conning some eager to please rock reject proved she was a use to anyone but her own wants. So when she started being friendly with Sayid he thought she was out for herself again. And he still cringed when he thought of those warnings he gave Sayid, though he knew they were more for his own benefit to keep Shannon on the market than to save Sayid any heartbreak or inconvenience. But Shannon proved that Sayid was more to her than her latest flunky and Boone wound up being happy for them, which was perhaps the most shocking thing about the whole situation.

Boone never thought he stood a chance with Jack but that didn't stop him daydreaming about what might happen should Jack suddenly decide to hell with sexual preferences, Boone was worth the switch. But he had to admit that he never saw the pair of them as much of a team. He thought that Jack was someone who could look after him and take care of him. Boone spent all his time worrying about other people and clearing up everyone else's messes and trying to take care of Shannon and Sabrina and whoever else decided he was a good shoulder to cry on that week but all he really wanted was to have someone who would wrap him up in their arms and tell him that it was okay to relax and let someone else take care of things for a little while. And every time he looked at Jack's arms with those cut off T-shirts he thought they looked pretty damn perfect for his daydream to come real in.

But things were different now. Things had to change. Adjustments had to be made. Jack's arms were for looking after Noah and Boone's arms were to share the workload. And Boone didn't want to sound jealous or bitter because he really, really wasn't. He loved Noah and he wouldn't change a thing about him for the world. But the fact that Jack and him made a good couple didn't necessarily mean they made a good team. Team suggests equals but Boone wasn't entirely convinced that was how their relationship worked. Jack had always been more dominant in the relationship and Boone had always been more than happy to let him be. In fact, Boone wanted him to.

So, because of the last what was nearly four years now, Boone was a little out of practice being the one in charge. Well, if he ever really was. Shannon let him believe he was in charge when it suited her but ultimately he knew how helpless he was. And Sabrina gave him the CEO position but proved on more than one occasion that she could go right over his head if she so wished. Regardless of those facts, now he and Jack had to work out a way to make this whole parenthood thing work.

"Give him here a sec," Jack requested, putting his arms out.

Boone looked at him. "Why?"

Jack looked a little confused. "What do you mean 'why?' He's my son, I want to hold him a minute."

"He's my son too," Boone stated and he swore he saw something flicker across Jack's face which sent him into an internal panic of just what the whole biological thing meant to Jack.

"I'd like to hold him if you don't mind," Sayid cut in, clearly sensing that something was going on. Boone wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He gave Sayid a little smile. "Sure."

Sayid stood up and picked up Zara, handing her over to Shannon who put her straight back on the floor between her legs, leaning down to beep her on the nose. Boone carefully handed Noah over to Sayid who started rocking him. "Hello there," he said. "I'm your uncle Sayid."

Boone sneaked a look at Jack to see if he was mad but found him looking at Zara. "She started to communicate with you guys yet?" he asked.

"Sayid claims so," Shannon replied, playing some kind of game with Zara's hands.

"She asks for her bottle," Sayid explained. "And she asks for me."

"Yeah, she asks for you but not for me," Shannon stated. "Kid's got brains at least," she smiled, ruffling Zara's hair.

How could Shannon be so okay with that? Boone didn't think he'd be okay with Noah wanting Jack instead of him. He kind of expected it but he wouldn't really be okay with it. There was a line between resignation and acceptance and Boone knew which side he'd firmly stood on his whole life. But he didn't want to make do when it came to his son or his relationship.

Boone wanted everything, and he kind of thought that he maybe deserved it this time too, so he was just going to have to hope Jack wanted everything too because surely a baby should only be as important as the person you have it with, no more, no less. Boone watched Jack out of the corner of his eye and hoped his values weren't skewed. 


	23. Chapter 23

Jack stood at the kitchen counter, fixing Noah's bottle and watching Boone pace around the room with the baby. He had to admit that Boone made such a cute daddy. Sure, he was looking slightly frazzled right now, and part of his hair was sticking up a little, but that just added to the cuteness factor when it came to Boone.

"Are you nearly done?" Boone asked, looking up from trying to calm Noah.

"Yep," Jack replied, picking up the bottle and heading towards the pair of them. "Give him here."

Boone looked a little annoyed. He looked as though he were about to say something but then thought better of it. "That's okay, I'll do it," he said, shifting Noah slightly in his arms and sticking his hand out for the bottle.

Hmm, something was clearly wrong here but Jack wasn't entirely sure what it was. He silently passed the bottle to Boone who placed it down at Noah's mouth.

"There you go," Boone cooed. "What was all that fuss about, huh?"

Noah calmed down and suckled the bottle while Boone rocked him soothingly. Jack found himself feeling sated too, like things were falling into place.

"You wanna go sit down?" Jack suggested.

Boone looked up from Noah. "Yeah, okay."

They headed through to the living room and sat down on the sofa. Jack leaned over and stroked the side of Noah's face, smiling down at him.

"Hey, Jack?" Boone asked in a tone of voice that let Jack know he was going to ask something ridiculously insecure and more than likely out of left field. He wasn't sure he had the energy for this right now.

"Yeah?" Jack answered, leaning away from Noah to look at Boone.

Boone bit his lip a little. "You, erm..." He stopped for a second and thought about his words. "You're really good with him."

"Thanks," Jack said but he was sure that he sounded more than a little suspicious. Mainly because he was. But he had reason to be because he knew that wasn't exactly what Boone was working up to. That was just the set-up. "You too," he added for good measure. And because it was true of course.

Boone gave a little nod. "You look tired."

Okay, Boone was apparently going with the random mode of conversation. "I'm okay," Jack replied.

"No, I know," Boone stated. "Superheroes don't need much sleep I guess," he added with a smile.

Jack gave him a look. "I'm not a superhero, Boone," he pointed out. He knew Boone was being cute but he hated any mention of 'hero' or 'god complex' or 'leader', he was sick of all that. "I'm not even a regular hero."

Boone gave Jack a look that suggested otherwise but thankfully dropped the subject. "Do you watch him sleep every night?" Boone asked and Jack suddenly realised how he was tying all those threads together. "You'll forgive me for not knowing but I tend to fall asleep when he does."

"I know, I feel like I'm putting both of you to bed sometimes," Jack smiled.

Boone looked at him. "You didn't answer my question," he pointed out.

"No, guess I didn't," Jack admitted. Boone looked at him like he was rather serious and Jack sighed, feeling a little cornered if he was honest. "So I like to watch him sleep, why is that such an issue?"

"It's not an issue, I didn't mean it like that," Boone explained. "I don't want you to get all defensive on me okay, I thought we were getting pretty good at that whole talking and sharing thing."

"We are," Jack agreed.

"So, I thought, maybe, you might wanna talk," Boone said carefully. And rather vaguely, Jack thought.

"About what?" Jack asked.

Boone looked a little irritated, which Jack couldn't help but find sweet. He was careful not to let on though or Boone would probably go from irritated to pissed off which was less fun.

"I know some of this baby stuff's hard for you," Boone commented. "And if you ever want to talk about any of it then I'm willing to listen. Even if it's like three in the morning or something. I get up for Noah, I'm more than willing to get up for you."

Jack smiled. He couldn't help it. But he also didn't really have anything he wanted to talk about. So sometimes he watched Noah sleep instead of catching some shuteye himself but he was no stranger to insomnia so there was no reason that should really bother him. And he perhaps had a slightly obsessive style of parenting and sometimes checked Noah a little over cautiously but better safe than sorry, right? But he wouldn't class any of that under 'something to talk about'.

"Do you trust me with him?" Boone asked.

Okay, Boone could do random but that was so far out that Jack wasn't quite sure what to make of it. "What?" he asked, almost laughing at the complete absurdity of the question. "Of course I do, why would you ask that?"

"Huh," was all Boone said, turning his attention back to feeding Noah.

"Boone, you cannot ask me something like that and then go 'huh'," Jack said, trying not to get wound up but it was a little late for that. "Why did you just ask me that? Don't you think I trust you?"

Boone shrugged. "You're always trying to take charge," he explained quietly. "Which I know is what you do but this is my baby too and you don't seem to understand that I can look after him as well."

Jack shook his head a little. "I don't think you can't."

Boone looked at Jack, confused. "That was a double negative so I don't really know what you said there."

Jack smiled. Trust Boone to turn a serious conversation into a discussion about grammar. "I think you can," Jack corrected. "In fact I know you can."

"Whenever I'm holding him you always try and take him off me," Boone stated. "Like just then, in the kitchen."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise I did that," Jack replied. He was trying to share the workload but perhaps he took more than his fair share. Which wouldn't be a first, but people didn't normally complain about it. "I guess I thought I was helping."

Boone nodded a little. "I know that you're scared something's going to happen to him," he said. "I'm scared of that too. But you've been putting all your energy into him lately, and I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, but you're gonna go insane sooner or later."

But Jack wanted to help people, that's what he did best. He may not want to be the leader but he certainly wanted to solve problems in his own way. And if Noah ever needed him he couldn't live with himself if he was somewhere else. And if he was honest, he couldn't quite understand where Boone was coming from. Okay, so maybe watching him sleep was a little crazy and unnecessary but as he couldn't sleep himself he wasn't sure what else to do. And, yeah, he probably was a little overprotective but this was just temporary, just until Noah was a little more able, just until Jack settled into things more. It wasn't a problem to take such good care of a newborn, surely.

Jack looked up and realised Boone was looking at him. "Are you worrying about me?" Jack asked.

"I'm worrying about a lot of things," Boone said, looking back down at Noah.

Well that wasn't good, Jack thought. "Please don't worry about stuff," he pleaded, feeling that stupid helpless feeling that only Boone seemed to give him. "What are you worrying about?"

"I dunno, it doesn't really matter," Boone dismissed.

"Come on, you were the one that wanted to talk," Jack pointed out.

"I just don't want you to shut me out again," Boone explained. "And I don't want you to make yourself ill cos you're so busy trying to look after him all the time. And I don't want you to feel like you're on your own and I don't want to feel like I'm on my own."

"Boone, no one is on their own," Jack assured him. "I don't feel like that, that's not why I'm acting like this. We're a team."

Boone nodded. "I know that really," he said. "It's just when you start acting like this I start to get worried. I just need you to still need me."

Jack couldn't help laughing a little. "You seriously think I'll ever get to a point where I won't need you?" he asked incredulously.

Boone shrugged. "You've pretty much got everything now, right?"

"Yeah, I do," Jack agreed. "But you're part of that everything. I get rid of you I won't have everything anymore. I'll just have an empty feeling that feels like a sucking chest wound."

Boone smiled at him and Jack loved that he could still do that. "It's just that I love you, like really a lot, and I love Noah, but everything feels kind of up in the air right now. I don't like uncertainty."

"I love you too. And I love Noah. So I guess we'll be okay," Jack stated.

Boone nodded a little but didn't look hugely convinced. And then Jack realised that he hadn't corrected Boone's comment about their futures being uncertain. And he also realised that he couldn't. If he could then he wouldn't be watching Noah sleep every night.

"I'm gonna try and put him down for a while," Boone said as he placed the bottle on the table and stood up.

"Okay," Jack replied, leaning back on the sofa.

He watched as Boone left the room and wished he could be relaxed enough to fully enjoy the present. And as much as he was enjoying fatherhood and getting to spend everyday with Boone there was this stupid medical knowledge that was stuck in his head of everything that could possibly go wrong with a baby and he wished he could somehow erase is all from his memory. How anyone could relax around a child when they knew all the dangers was beyond him. But this was preferable to shutting Noah out like he would one of his patients so he was just going to have to get on with it. 


	24. Chapter 24

Boone looked at the way Sabrina was holding Noah and couldn't help but notice she appeared to have the maternal instincts of, well, something not very maternal. One of those animals that ate their young perhaps. How did she ever become a mother in the first place? No, Boone was fairly sure he didn't want to know the answer to that. He figured he was either a mistake or a way for his mother to guilt his father into sticking around and neither of those things was going to make him feel particularly validated right now.

"So, is your plan to be a stay-at-home father now, Boone?" Sabrina asked, looking at him in a slightly disapproving way. She was trying to hide it but she was so used to being direct that she's lost her touch at subtlety.

"Yeah, I think that's pretty much me set now," Boone replied. Maybe if he had sugar-coated that a little he wouldn't earn himself such a big lecture. No, Sabrina had probably been practising put-downs that sounded supportive all the way over in the car.

"You're just never going to work again?" she pressed.

"Mom, people work to get money. We have money. And we don't want our child raised by somebody else so I think this is a pretty good option personally," Boone explained calmly.

Sabrina didn't look pleased, but Boone guessed that was due more to his subtle allusion to his many childhood nannies than to the fact that he clearly had a point. She turned her attention to Jack. "And when are you planning to start back at the hospital?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm not sure yet. They're being pretty open with it but I think they'd prefer I return sooner rather than later," Jack explained.

"Best not to get out of practice I suppose," Sabrina suggested.

"Mom, he spent two and a half years on an island and that didn't put him out of practice, did it?" Boone stated. Sabrina was less subtle with her glare this time. "And you're making us sound like idiots for wanting to spend time with our child."

"Boone, you know that's not what I meant," Sabrina replied, trying to sound level. "And you know I've been more than a little supportive about things since you came back. And I'm glad to have you back and I'm happy for everything you have. I just want to make sure that you're making the right choices in life."

Boone rolled his eyes a little. He couldn't help it. He knew Sabrina meant well, in her own special way, but she was just coming off as irritating right now. And Boone was tired and so not in the mood. "I'm making different choices than you made, mom, that doesn't make them wrong."

"I suppose you have a point there," Sabrina allowed.

"Shannon stays at home with Zara all day, she gets along just fine," Boone pointed out.

"Yes, but that's Shannon, the girl's never had a job in her life," Sabrina stated.

Boone would have argued but technically it was true so there didn't seem like much point. "I'm happy, okay?" he said. "That should be what you want."

"That is what I want," Sabrina agreed.

"Then everyone's happy," Boone asserted.

Sabrina nodded a little and then the conversation died. She looked down at Noah in her arms as if she wasn't quite sure what to do with him. Boone almost felt sorry for her. She then looked back over at Jack. "It's very good of the hospital to be so understanding about things."

"Yeah, they're being pretty good about it. I think some of them are still a little wary of me since I came back to be honest so it wasn't really such a big deal," he replied somewhat distantly and Boone noticed that he was staring at the way Sabrina was holding Noah the whole time he was talking. "Do you want me to take him?" he asked.

"What?" Sabrina asked, clearly not following.

"Noah," Jack explained. "Do you want me to..." he stopped and decided, wisely Boone thought, to rephrase himself. "I think I might try and put him down for a nap."

"Oh, right," Sabrina said, unceremoniously holding Noah towards him. Jack quickly got up and took Noah out of her arms, cradling him gently.

"I'll be back in a minute," Jack said as he headed out of the room with Noah.

"He's good with him," Sabrina stated after he'd left the room.

"Yeah, Jack's the biggest natural around," Boone agreed. "And I mean at everything. Surely everyone should be bad at at least one thing."

"I'm sure he has his faults," Sabrina commented.

"I can't really see any," Boone continued.

"Love does that to you," Sabrina replied. "Things start to shine through after a while though."

Boone wasn't really sure what to make of that comment. Was Sabrina expecting them to fall out of love? It wasn't like that with him and Jack, it's not like he was some loved up teenager. This was an adult relationship and sure they had their problems but they worked through them, there was no way this was falling apart. There was no way Boone was letting this fall apart. And okay, him and Jack were a little stressed out right now what with adjusting to parenthood and all but once things settled down again they were in it for the long haul.

"You know that your job's still open for you, don't you?" Sabrina asked. "Strictly speaking Harry's been working the position for the past three years but if you wanted to come back I can always demote him."

"No, mom, please don't demote Harry," Boone replied, a little amused. "You know how I feel about that job. I'm happier staying here."

"Did you always hate the job?" Sabrina asked him. Boone noted that she didn't seem quite so upset by the prospect, more regretful, which was a huge step up from when he first told her he was handing in his resignation. Furious would have been an understatement.

"No, I don't think so," Boone admitted. "I don't think it was about hating the job, it was about never knowing what else I could do, never feeling like I had the option to find out. I felt a little stuck I guess. I think I kind of resented the position."

Sabrina nodded. "You could have turned the job down," she suggested.

"No I couldn't and you know that," he replied. "And I don't just mean because I felt forced into it. There was the whole money, status, girls thing going on too."

"Girls?" Sabrina asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Mainly," Boone shrugged and suddenly wondered where Jack had gotten to. He fleetingly thought that Noah might be causing him some trouble but he couldn't hear any crying. Which meant that Jack was just staring at him again. Sure Boone did his fair share of watching Noah sleep too, it was pretty soothing to get lost just looking at him, but Jack never took his eyes off the kid, like something terrible would happen the second he left the room or closed his eyes. And Boone knew why Jack did that, he clearly had some residual issues left over from what happened with Kimberley, but it was starting to get less cute everyday.

"How old were you when you realised you liked boys as well as girls?" Sabrina asked.

Boone looked at her, not sure he heard right. "What?"

"When you realised you were bisexual," Sabrina clarified. "How old were you?"

"Mom, I really don't think..." Boone began.

"It's a simple enough question, Boone," Sabrina cut in. "And there's really no reason to be embarrassed about it."

Right, of course not, except that he was talking about his sexual preference with his mother who never once asked him how a date had gone, unless it was of some benefit to her company.

"I don't know," Boone admitted. "I never really had a revelation that boys could be attractive too. I think the revelation was actually that most people only liked one sex."

"How old were you when you had your first boyfriend?" Sabrina asked and Boone kind of wished he was dead.

"Mom, why are you asking all this stuff now?"

"Because I have the chance. And I'm interested. I would have thought you'd be pleased that I was taking an interest," Sabrina stated, clearly not getting how this conversation might be making Boone feel uncomfortable.

"Okay, fine, but can't you take an interest in the house or Noah or Jack or something that doesn't involve sex," Boone requested.

"Your relationship with Jack doesn't involve sex?" she asked in a way that was rather reminiscent of Shannon he couldn't help but notice.

Boone rolled his eyes. "Not lately."

Sabrina looked almost concerned but Boone threw her a look that made her back off. "So when was your first boyfriend?" she pressed.

"Okay, I made out with a couple of guys in high school but I didn't have a proper boyfriend until college, happy?" Boone replied.

"Is that why you and Sapphire broke up?" Sabrina asked.

"No, mom, that was something else," Boone explained, getting irritated. "Rob wasn't until after that summer."

"So after you broke up with Sapphire you went out and got a boyfriend?" Sabrina surmised.

"It's not like I got my heart broken by a pretty girl and started going after boys instead," Boone stated. "Weren't you paying attention to the high school part?"

"Okay, fair enough," Sabrina replied.

"Now, can we please drop this?" Boone requested.

Sabrina nodded and busied herself adjusting the rings on her fingers. Boone guessed that the mini-interrogation was actually her trying to be a good mother but he had to admit that she wasn't really very good at it. He hoped his bonding with Noah wasn't going to be this awkward. But he had a head start on Sabrina in those stakes, like a twenty-eight year head start, so he guessed he'd be okay. And he was going to spend everyday getting to know the little guy as he grew up and found out who he was and Boone couldn't wait to find out right along side him. He kind of wished he had someone to find out who he was with back when he was a kid, maybe he wouldn't be so damn confused about everything right now if he had. But he had Jack who always encouraged him to have a sense of self and being with Noah made him feel like he had an identity too, like he mattered, like he made a difference in the world. So Boone was doing things a little late in life. Better late than never, right? 


	25. Chapter 25

"I was thinking of doing something with the yard," Boone announced, looking out of the window in the nursery. 

Jack looked up from changing Noah. "What?"

"The yard," Boone repeated. "I thought I might do something with it."

"Like what?" Jack asked, disposing of the dirty diaper.

"I don't know," Boone replied. "It needs weeding for one thing. I could tidy up all the borders, plant something colourful in them."

"Mmm," Jack agreed, concentrating on wiping Noah down. He made some faces at him and saw his eyes light up. He wasn't quite smiling yet but Jack could tell he was getting close and if you looked carefully you could see the beginnings of full expressions on his little face. Jack wanted to interact with him as much as possible to encourage Noah to communicate back and learn how to express himself. And he was sure that it was working because everyday he could see little changes in the way Noah looked at him.

"What do you think? Jack?"

Jack looked up and suddenly realised that Boone was still talking to him. "Sorry, what?"

Boone looked annoyed. "Are you not listening to me?"

"I am, I'm sorry, I was just changing Noah," Jack explained.

"You know, I can actually change Noah and hold a conversation," Boone replied, sounding unimpressed. "It's called multitasking."

"That would be another thing you do like a woman then," Jack retorted.

Boone looked upset. And Jack guessed he had a right to be, that was a little out of line, he knew Boone was sensitive about their roles. But then Boone was sensitive about everything and there was really only so much creeping around that Jack could do.

"You never pay attention to me whenever you're doing something with him," Boone said.

"Do you want me to start playing favourites?" Jack asked. He could feel himself getting more wound up and Boone certainly wasn't doing anyone any favours right now. Jack finished up with Noah and lifted him off the changing table.

"Look, this is all coming out wrong, I don't want to fight with you, okay?" Boone stated.

"Just, please don't start this Boone cos I really, I don't think I could take it," Jack pleaded.

Boone looked at him. "Start what?"

"You're getting jealous over a four-week-old baby," Jack stated.

Boone looked down at his feet, an ironic smile on his lips, and then looked back up at Jack. "I'm not jealous."

"Then stop acting like it," Jack told him, walking over to the crib to put Noah down for a nap. He wasn't sure Noah needed a nap right now if he was honest but he figured that maybe it would put off an argument.

"Jack, are you serious?" Boone asked, looking confused and concerned at the same time like only he could.

Jack turned to face him. "You're acting like a spoilt brat," he stated. "You're acting like some only child who just got a little brother and now you're fighting for attention."

"Where do you get this stuff from?" Boone asked. "It's not like he's my kid brother, he's my son."

"And he's getting in the way of our relationship," Jack finished.

Boone looked at him. "I don't agree with you."

"What else is new?" he quipped, bending down to adjust Noah's blanket.

"You're the one who's acting like a petulant child here," Boone pointed out. "You're the one who's making snide comments. You're the one who's acting all high and mighty."

"Can we just stop, okay, we're gonna upset Noah," Jack said.

"So let's leave the room. Noah's fine, why don't we just leave him to it?" Boone suggested, but the way he was looking at Jack made it look more like a challenge. Jack didn't say anything, he just looked right back at Boone. They both knew he wasn't going anywhere. Boone nodded. "You stand there and tell me I've got issues."

"Boone..."

"You haven't slept in four weeks!"

"I've slept," Jack insisted.

"You've napped," Boone corrected. "That's hardly the same thing. And you only ever seem to get any sleep when I'm awake and I'm watching him. Jack, nothing is gonna happen if you go to sleep."

Jack knew that that was more than likely true. And it's not like he particularly chose to stay up and watch him all the time, he just couldn't sleep, there was a difference. He hated not being able to sleep but having Noah there made it worthwhile to stay up, to be awake. He had something to do other than wandering the house or watching Boone sleep and feeling jealous. But when he watched Noah sleep he didn't feel jealous, he felt complete.

"The hospital called again today," Boone said, quieter now. But it wasn't like he felt better, it was like he'd given up. "They want you back next week."

Jack gave a little nod, they'd been enquiring into when he would be returning to work and he'd been putting them off but he knew they wouldn't stand for it much longer. They'd been patient with him but enough was enough he guessed. And he knew it was only fair that he returned but he just wasn't sure if he could do it. He had to of course, but when did that ever make things any easier?

"Are you going to go?" Boone asked him. "Back, I mean."

Jack looked down at Noah who was looking right back at him. He clearly wasn't in the mood for a nap but he was happy enough to lie there for now. Jack bet it would be a different story if he and Boone tried to leave though. "Yeah, I'll be going back."

"You don't have to," Boone said.

"I think I do," Jack replied. "I don't think they'll keep the position open much longer to be honest. And I don't really want to take any more liberties."

"But if you want you can let them fill the position," Boone continued. Jack looked at him. "If you don't want to go back you don't have to. I could get a job. My mom actually offered me my old job back last week."

"Boone, you hated that job," Jack pointed out.

"I don't care," he said. "I'd get to come home to you. And Noah."

Jack shook his head. "I like my job," he said. "I want to go back, okay?"

"But you don't want to leave Noah alone with me," Boone nodded, looking all put upon again.

Jack rolled his eyes. "You don't listen to a word I say, do you?"

"I must be picking up your bad habits," Boone responded.

"If you're going to be incapable of having an adult conversation, Boone, then I'm just not going to talk to you."

"Stop treating me like a kid," Boone demanded.

"Stop acting like one then," Jack suggested.

"God, if you think I'm such a terrible person then why are you even with me? Why did you have a baby with me?" Boone asked.

"You're not a terrible person, Boone," Jack told him. "You're just acting like an idiot."

Boone looked at him incredulously. "I don't know how _you_ can say that to _me_ with a straight face, you're clearly insane."

"Christ, we were having a conversation a second ago, why do you always do this?" Jack asked.

"I'm not doing anything," Boone replied, looking sad. "I'm not doing a thing, Jack." He looked over at Noah and bit his lip. He sighed. "We can't do this in front of him." He looked back to Jack. "Guess that means we're not doing it, huh?"

Jack wanted to say something grown-up and reassuring but quite honestly he couldn't think of a word to say. He knew that he said some stuff that was unnecessary and he was quite aware that he was acting immature himself but he also said a lot of valid stuff about Boone's jealousy and he had to stick by that.

Boone shook his head a little and headed out of the room. And Jack stood there and watched him like the idiot that he was.


	26. Chapter 26

"You're missing a boyfriend and a baby," Shannon pointed out as she opened the door to Boone who just gave her a weary look.

"They're at home," he explained. "I'm on a diaper run."

"This isn't a store," Shannon replied.

"I have the diapers already, I just thought I'd come say 'hi' on my way back," Boone said.

"Okay," Shannon said, stepping out of the way and letting him into the house.

Boone went through to where Zara was in her playpen. He walked over and leaned down to her. "Hey, cutie," he smiled. She smiled back and gurgled something at him.

"So what's up?" Shannon asked, leaning against the door frame.

Boone straightened up and turned to face her. "What?"

"You're looking all forlorn and you obviously want to talk about it," Shannon stated. "So what's up?"

Boone shrugged a little and headed over to the sofa. "Me and Jack just had a stupid argument yesterday, that's all."

"What about?" Shannon asked, going to sit next to him.

"I don't know, nothing really," Boone replied.

"Nothing?" Shannon asked. "It must have been about something, Boone."

"Not really," Boone said. "He's being obsessive with Noah. And I'm worrying about him, he seriously needs to lighten up. I feel kinda like I'm surplus to requirement, y'know."

"I never know what you're talking about, Boone," Shannon replied dryly.

Boone gave her a look. "I feel like now he's got his baby he doesn't need me anymore. He doesn't act like he needs me."

"He needs you, Boone, trust me," Shannon insisted. "He'd be a wreck without you."

"He's a bit of a wreck anyway," Boone commented. "And he practically looks after Noah on his own, I don't think he'd notice if I didn't go back."

"He'd notice," Shannon smiled.

"Yeah," Boone agreed. "When he ran out of diapers."

Shannon looked at him. "I think the two of you need some alone time."

"There's no such think as alone time, Noah's never out of the room," Boone told her. "Or, more accurately, Jack's never out of the room with Noah."

"You two are useless, you're doing it all wrong," Shannon moaned.

Boone looked at her, a little nervous. "Doing what wrong?"

"You're not supposed to let the baby rule your lives," Shannon said, rolling her eyes a little. "Well, I mean, I guess you are in a way, but you're supposed to be the ones in charge, you have to discipline them. I bet you have no routine with Noah at all, do you?"

"Not exactly..." Boone admitted.

"When Sayid and I had Zara we made sure we set some ground rules down from the second she came home. And it worked, she sticks to them. She has a bedtime and she's okay with it cos that's just the way things go as far as she's concerned," Shannon explained. "So we put her to bed at the same time every night and we have a couple of hours just to watch TV or talk or whatever before we head off to bed. We have time, just the two of us, as a couple." She looked him in the eye to make sure she had his attention. "Boone, you might be parents, but you're still a couple too. And you can't forget about that cos everything's gonna go to shit if you do."

Boone nodded. She had a point. A very good point. How the hell did Shannon know all this stuff anyway? Sayid probably taught her, Boone reasoned, no way would Shannon be that disciplined on her, she seemed to think rules were made to be broken. But he and Jack hadn't really been anything resembling a couple for the past four weeks and it was beginning to be a problem. And it was an even bigger problem that Jack didn't seem to care.

"Okay, I have a plan," Shannon declared.

Boone came out of his thoughts and looked at her. "You do?"

"Uh-huh," she said, looking pleased with herself. "Let Noah stay here for the night."

"Stay here?" Boone asked.

"Yeah, he can have a sleep over with us," Shannon continued. "You and Jack can have the house to yourselves for the night and you can talk and stuff and sort things out and, more importantly, just be with each other, alone. And it'll only be for like twelve hours so it won't be too scary and you'll know he's right here and he's safe."

That did sound like a pretty attractive plan. It would be good for their relationship and Boone thought it would be good for Jack too, that's if he could get Jack to agree to it and he really didn't see that conversation going down too well. But if Jack was going back to work next week then he had to get used to being away from Noah and this could be like a dry run. Only not really because Jack would be with Boone and not at the hospital but it would be a start at least. And they really did have things to talk about, there were things that needed to be addressed before Jack was back at the hospital.

Boone nodded a little. "I'll talk to Jack about it," he said. "Thanks, sis."

Shannon smiled and shrugged and surprisingly decided not the gloat.

When Boone got home he closed the door and listened out for Jack. Nothing. That probably meant he was watching Noah sleep. He put his keys down and headed for the stairs but as he walked past the living room he stopped. He walked into the room and saw Noah asleep in his rocker chair and Jack asleep on the sofa. Boone smiled. Jack was actually asleep whilst being in sole care of Noah. Okay, Noah was asleep too, but it was still a huge step forward.

Boone wasn't really sure what to do now. He was suddenly buzzing with energy and he thought that maybe Jack would consider letting Shannon and Sayid watch Noah for the night. After all, they were more experienced parents than he and Jack were and by the looks of it they had a damn better way of approaching parenthood too. He wanted to go over there and kiss him but he didn't want to wake him up so he decided to go into the kitchen and leave him to it for now.

He sat at the kitchen table and went through the bills and then balanced his cheque book, and then he did Jack's which was slightly harder work. He was just starting on dinner when Jack came through, stretching.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Boone smiled.

Jack smiled back at him. "Yeah, sorry, I guess I fell asleep there."

"Don't apologise," Boone said. "You have no idea how great it is to see you actually doing something human. And very sensible I might add."

Jack gave him another smile but it was a little bemused this time. "Okay then."

"Hey, I wanna ask you something," Boone ventured.

"Shoot," Jack said, talking a seat at the table.

"Well, I was talking to Shannon, and she thought it might be a good idea if, maybe, they took Noah for a night, like just one night, and we had the place to ourselves. Y'know, have like a date or whatever before you go back to work," Boone rambled.

Jack looked at him for what felt like forever and Boone was just about to start backtracking when Jack finally spoke. "Take Noah where?"

It took Boone as second to understand what he was asking. "Well, not really take him anywhere, just to their house, like they could baby-sit for a night," he explained.

"Oh, right," Jack replied, rather noncommittally. And then he was silent again, staring at the table. "And why are they doing this again?" he asked, looking up at Boone.

Boone rolled his eyes. "Jack, what part of this don't you get?" he asked. "Look, we don't have to if you don't want to."

"Wait, I didn't say that," Jack insisted, rubbing his forehead. "Please bear in mind that I just woke up over here." He looked back at Boone. "So Shannon and Sayid would take care of Noah for us for a night while we had this place to ourselves?"

"Yeah," Boone replied. "Cos we kinda have some stuff to sort out before you go back to work and also I guess it would be nice to spend some time alone together," he said. "Not that I have an objection to Noah being around, I don't mean it like that," Boone added hastily.

Jack smiled. "I know that," he said. "And you're right. It would be nice to have you to myself."

"It would?" Boone asked, which wasn't the way he was planning for that to come out but Jack's reply wasn't really what he was expecting either.

"I know I'm a little crazy overprotective with him but that doesn't mean I don't still want to hang out with you all the time. I kind of miss you actually," Jack admitted which made Boone smile. "All I ever seem to do is yell at you lately, don't think I haven't noticed."

"You don't yell," Boone told him. "You just undermine me."

"I'm sorry," Jack told him.

"That's okay, I'm mostly kidding," Boone assured him.

"You're also mostly right," Jack said. "So we'll give this a go. I might be bad at it though."

"Bad at what?" Boone asked.

"Not being by his side," Jack explained. "I might be even harder to bear than I am now."

"You don't have to worry about that, Jack," Boone told him. "Trust me, it's not even possible." 


	27. Chapter 27

Once Jack and Boone returned from dropping Noah off at Shannon's, Jack wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself. He knew what he'd normally do right about now but seeing as that was out he'd have to revert back to the old days, which seemed like a whole lot longer than fours weeks away. Boone looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

"What?" Jack asked.

Boone smiled a little. "You wanna call Shannon, don't you?"

"No," Jack replied, which was admittedly a complete lie. Boone gave him a look. "I'm not going to. I'm sure Noah'll be fine."

"Yeah, he will," Boone agreed.

"You don't think she's gonna ignore him do you?" Jack asked.

"What?"

"Well, not ignore him, but just try and impose some routine on him that he's not used to cos that'll just upset him," Jack explained. "You know what they're like with Zara, they don't give her a whole lot of leeway, and Noah's used to leeway so do you think they'll make allowances?"

"Jack, calm down, I'm sure it'll be fine," Boone assured him.

"Yeah, it will," Jack repeated, nodding his head, hoping that made it look like he was convinced. He stood there for a second. "Maybe I should just make a quick call."

Boone laughed and shook his head. "Go on then."

"No, I shouldn't, it's crazy and obsessive," Jack replied.

"Yeah but you're crazy and obsessive so it sounds about right," Boone smiled. Jack looked at him. "Just call her so we can get on with our evening."

"Okay, just real quick, just to put my mind at rest, then you can have my full attention," Jack told him, heading for the living room.

"I'll look forward to that," Boone said, following after him.

Jack picked up the phone and speed dialled Shannon. "Hello?" she answered.

"Hey, Shannon, it's Jack, I was just..."

"Christ, don't worry, I haven't killed him yet," Shannon interrupted. "Jack, you've been gone like ten minutes."

"Yeah, I know, I just wanted to make sure he was doing okay," Jack explained. "Is he settling in all right?"

"He's fine," Shannon replied, sounding rather irritated. "He probably doesn't know he's anywhere different, all he does is stare at the ceiling anyway."

Jack knew that Shannon was a good mother but he also knew that for some reason she liked to hide that side of her well. He knew she'd take good care of Noah, as would Sayid, but he wished she could sound a little more positive and reassuring.

"Look, if anything happens to him I want you to call me, okay? Anything at all," Jack instructed. "Even if you don't think it's a big deal."

"Okay, Jack," she said, sounding bored.

"If anything at all seems slightly out of the ordinary you have to call cos I'm a doctor and I..."

"Jack, give me the phone," Boone interrupted.

Jack looked up at Boone. "Just a sec," he told him.

"Jack," Boone repeated. "Give me the phone."

Jack sighed. "Shannon, Boone wants a word, hang on."

He passed the phone over to Boone who took it off him and sat down on the sofa. He listened for a second and then said "Tell me about it," whilst looking at Jack. Well, how very supportive of him, Jack thought, he's going to gossip about me. Not that he had any grounds to stand on so he headed into the kitchen and left him to it.

He opened the kitchen cupboards and found an expensive bottle of red wine they'd been saving. Now seemed as good a time as any. He opened the bottle and grabbed two glasses, heading back into the living room.

"Uh-huh," Boone said into the phone as he looked up at Jack and saw the wine. "Yeah, listen Shan, I have to go, I'll speak to you later. Bye." He hung up and turned his attention to Jack who sat down next to him and poured the wine. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm getting you drunk so I can take advantage of you," Jack explained, handing him one of the glasses.

Boone took it and looked at him for a second before a smile came over his face. "Okay then."

Jack smiled back and leaned in to kiss him. Boone met him half way and Jack hadn't quite realised how much he'd missed this. He was just starting to really get into it when Boone pulled away.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?" Jack asked, reluctantly opening his eyes again.

"We can't do that yet," Boone stated.

"Yeah we can," Jack replied and leaned back in.

Boone maintained the distance between them. "No," he said shaking his head a little. "We have to talk, remember? And I don't think we're gonna talk all that much if you keep kissing me."

Jack nodded and leaned back again. "Okay, you're right," he agreed. "We get to kiss later though, right?"

Boone smiled. "Yeah, we get to kiss later."

"Okay then," Jack said, taking a sip of his wine.

"So I guess we have some stuff to work out," Boone began. "We need to change a few things cos it's not working so well as it is."

Jack nodded. "I guess you're right," he admitted. "I have been a really terrible boyfriend lately."

"That's not what I meant," Boone told him.

"Maybe not but it's certainly a factor," Jack insisted. "I think I need to get my priorities straight. It's just that I've been waiting so long for this and I guess I got so caught up with Noah that I just... I don't know. I don't want anything to happen to him because I really need this to work out, all of this."

"You want your family," Boone stated.

"Yeah, I do," Jack agreed.

"I'm part of that," Boone pointed out.

"I know that," Jack replied. "But I guess I didn't make it clear to you that I knew that," he finished, realising what he'd been doing. "I'm sorry, Boone, I wasn't doing this on purpose."

"I know you weren't," Boone replied.

"That doesn't make it okay," Jack told him. "I guess I kind of took it for granted that you'd be there so I concentrated on him."

Boone looked down. "You know, I'm so used to everyone in my life taking me for granted, everyone's always done it to me and I never even really cared. But it was different with you. You taught me that I was worth it, that I was worth something. And then it was like you stopped believing in me or something." He glanced up at Jack. "I know this is all of bunch of crap, I know I blow everything out of proportion."

"No, I think that's quite accurate," Jack told him. He scooted up closer and put a hand on his thigh. "You are worth something, Boone, and don't let anyone, not even me, let you believe that you're not. Your confidence has to come from yourself, not from me, that's where you're going wrong."

Boone looked up at him. "I don't wanna lose you," he said simply. "If I lost you I don't think I'd even exist anymore."

"You're not gonna lose me," Jack assured him. "You're just not, okay?"

"So we're gonna have to work on things," Boone told him. "Relationships don't just happen, you have to work on them, and now that we have Noah we have less time to work on it but we're going to have to find the time or..." he trailed off and sighed.

Jack nodded. "We will, we'll make the time."

"You're gonna go back to hospital next week and when you do I'm gonna try and get Noah into some kind of routine, which is probably gonna be a little tough on both him and me, but it has to be done," Boone went on. "And then, if I can do it, we should be able to get more time with just the two of us for stuff like this."

"That sounds like a plan to me," Jack agreed.

"But you're gonna have to let go of him a little bit," Boone told him. "Which is gonna be tough and you're not gonna like it but..."

"You're right," Jack nodded. "I'm not really helping anyone by acting the way I am. It's not helping me, it's not helping you and Noah's never gonna be able to stand on his own two feet if I treat him like this the rest of his life. He'll be one of those kids that never moves out, they just go live in the basement and think cos it's a different floor it doesn't count."

Boone smiled. "Yeah, we don't want one of those kids."

"I want him to be strong," Jack said. "But I can't make him strong by giving him everything I have, it doesn't work like that, does it?"

Boone shook his head. "No, I don't think so."

"It's a tough one, isn't it?" Jack considered. "I give him too much and he'll never be strong but I give him too little and he'll..." '...end up like Boone' was Jack's immediate thought but he couldn't exactly say that out loud.

"No one ever said being a parent was easy," Boone commented.

"No," Jack agreed. "But they didn't say it would be this complicated either."

"Life's all about middle grounds, Jack," Boone told him.

Jack nodded. "You're right." He looked Boone in the eye. "We're gonna do okay. I mean, surely you can't get it that wrong."

"Are you gonna be okay?" Boone asked. "Leaving him all day to go to the hospital."

"I trust you," Jack told him, really hoping he got the point across. "So I've got no excuse to not be okay."

"Okay then," Boone said. "I think we can do this."

"Of course we can," Jack agreed. He took another sip of wine and then reached over and took Boone's glass out of his hand, placing them both down on the coffee table. "Now that we've dissected our parenting skills, can we get back to the kissing part?"

Boone gave Jack a smile that made it very hard for Jack to wait for a reply before jumping him. "I think that would be a nice progression of the evening," Boone agreed.

Jack smiled back and leaned in for another kiss, much more passionate this time. He pulled Boone in close to him and slipped a hand under his shirt. He'd almost forgotten the way Boone smelt and the way Boone felt but he was quite enjoying remembering. And if this was the kind of evening he had to endure to save his relationship he was really, really okay with that. He leaned Boone back and started work on his belt. 


	28. Chapter 28

As Boone began to stir he was pleased to find he was still wrapped in Jack's arms. He smiled to himself and snuggled in a little closer, Jack responding to his touch. 

"What time is it?" he asked, not opening his eyes.

"Eleven," Jack replied.

"Guess we should go pick Noah up soon," Boone suggested.

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "But I think we need to take a shower first, we smell like sex."

Boone smiled and opened his eyes to look at Jack. "Yeah, I think you're right," he replied. "There are worse things to smell of though."

"Oh, I think it's one of the best things to smell of," Jack commented. "Just not in front of your kid."

"Right," Boone agreed. "So you had fun last night?"

"I think that's an understatement," Jack smiled. "You were there, right?"

"Well, yeah, you seemed to be enjoying yourself at the time," Boone said. "But in retrospect?"

"In retrospect, we need to stop having so many dry spells, what the hell are we thinking? I mean, I seriously don't know how I manage to keep my hands off you half the time. Right now I want my hands very much on you."

Boone smiled. "Well, once we get into a routine with everything we should be able to have a lot more nights like that."

"I hope so," Jack said. "We totally need to make more of an effort to do that more often."

"Mmm," Boone hummed in agreement, closing his eyes again and thinking back to last night. How he and Jack always managed to screw things up so much was beyond him but they seemed to be fairly back on track now so he felt like he could relax for a little while, which he hadn't done in forever.

"Hey, don't go falling back asleep," Jack told him.

Boone opened his eyes. "I'm not falling asleep, I'm enjoying the moment."

Jack looked at him and then nodded a little. "Okay then," he said, seeming a little unsure.

"I don't think I can move," Boone said.

Jack smiled at him. "I guess we used some muscles that were a little out of practice last night, huh?"

"It was worth it," Boone shrugged and gave Jack a little smile.

"Come on, we really should get up," Jack said.

"Yeah, I know," Boone replied, hoping it didn't come out too much like a whine.

"Hey, I just said we needed to go in the shower, I never said we had to stop enjoying our alone time," Jack pointed out. "Read between the lines, Boone."

Okay, Boone was a little slow on the uptake today. But his head was rather fuzzy so he guessed he could be forgiven.

"If you don't hurry up I'm going to start without you," Jack told him, slipping out of bed.

Boone watched him leave and smiled to himself. He'd always considered himself a helpful kind of person, willing to lend a hand, so he figured it was only right if he followed Jack and put those hands to use. He got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"Well, considering how sex-stupid you look I'm guessing you guys had a good time," Shannon said.

"Shannon, you can't say that word in front of the baby," Boone warned.

"What, 'stupid'?" Shannon asked innocently, looking down at Noah in her arms. "He lives with you two so I'm sure he'll pick that word up pretty quickly."

Boone gave her a look. "Just give him here." Shannon handed Noah to Boone. "Hey, little guy. Did you have fun, huh?"

"Was he okay?" Jack asked.

"He's been fine," Shannon told them. "And he behaved himself pretty well to say you two are the most lax parents I've ever met."

"So no problems?" Jack asked.

"No, no problems, Jack," Shannon replied, coming off pretty condescending. But Boone guessed that was intentional.

"And he wasn't any trouble?" Jack pressed.

"Not as much trouble as you're being right now," Shannon stated.

"Okay, I'm sorry," Jack said. He leaned over Boone and stroked the side of Noah's face. "I just worry about you, sweetie."

"Aw, you don't have to worry about me, I'm fine," Shannon smiled.

Jack gave her an amused look. "I guess we should probably get out of your way."

"Okay," she said, more serious now. "But I'm glad you guys seem to have sorted some stuff out. You both seem happier. And any time you want a baby-sitter, just call."

"Thanks, Shan," Boone replied.

"By the way, this would be the part where you offer to return the favour," Shannon hinted. Well, Boone didn't think you could really call something so obvious a hint actually.

"You need a baby-sitter?" Jack asked.

"Not right now but I'm sure we can put you guys to good use sometime," Shannon replied. "Just nice to know the option's there is all."

Jack nodded. "Anytime," he said.

"Thanks," she smiled. "Now get out of my house."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"You know, you've been very relaxed about this whole thing really," Boone told Jack as he fixed Noah into his baby seat.

Jack nodded. "I guess it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be," he admitted. "I did have you to distract me though."

"But even now," Boone commented. "I mean, apart from questioning Shannon a little... But you let me take him and you're not even checking that I'm fastening him in right."

Jack looked amused. "Boone, I _do_ trust you," Jack told him. "I'm sure you can fasten his baby seat."

"Well, yeah, I can," Boone agreed. "But usually you check."

"Yeah, usually I'm a jerk," Jack replied. "And usually you deserve better."

Boone couldn't help but smile. He was coming around to the fact that he was maybe owed some stuff from life but it was always nice to be reminded of the fact. Especially when it was Jack reminding him because then he felt like he could take advantage of the fact and get Jack to do some stuff he liked. But he had a feeling Jack would be doing that stuff more often from now on anyway, which was a very nice feeling indeed.

He finished strapping Noah in and then closed the door, moving to Jack at the front of the car. "I'm proud of you," he said.

Jack smiled a little. "You're proud of me?"

Boone nodded. "Uh-huh. I thought you were gonna have a major meltdown last night but you didn't. You were so with me and you were into it and you didn't seem distracted. So I'm proud of you."

Jack moved a little closer. "Thank you," he said. "That really means a lot to me, Boone."

Boone smiled and shrugged. He leaned in and kissed Jack, really appreciating the fact that he felt like he could do it whenever he wanted again. But they had Noah waiting in the back of the car so he cut it short and pulled away. "I'll drive," he said, holding out his hand for the keys.

Jack smiled at him a little and pulled him in for another kiss. Noah was probably okay with waiting.


	29. Chapter 29

Jack stood at the nurse's station, signing off on some charts and trying not to think about calling home. He rang Boone up at lunch time and things were fine so he knew that there was nothing to worry about. In fact he had a feeling Boone was actually quite glad to get him out of the house and leave him to it for a while and Jack kind of got why.

"Dr. Shepherd." Jack looked up and saw Maria walking towards him. She gave him a smile. "Heard a rumour you were coming back."

"Yeah, I figured it was about time," Jack replied.

"We thought you'd been run out of town or something," she joked.

"Nope, just holing myself up with my kid for a while," Jack responded.

"So, you better have a picture cos I've been dying to see the little bambino," Maria told him, leaning over the desk.

Jack took out his wallet and produced a photo of Boone and Noah, by far his favourite picture of either one of them. "Here we are."

Maria took the photo off him and smiled widely. "Aw, he's adorable," she said. "And the baby's pretty cute too."

Jack smiled. "They're both adorable."

"Yeah, you lucky, lucky guy," she said, gazing at the photo. "I wish I could get stuck on a desert island with some hottie."

She actually managed to make it sound pretty romantic there. Which it so totally wasn't. Not on most days anyway. "I'm not sure I'd recommend it as the ideal way to meet a life partner," he told her.

"Hey, don't knock it, you made out okay didn't you?" she pointed out.

Jack nodded. He guessed he really did. And those two and a half years were totally worth everything he had right now.

"Jack, we need you down in the ER," a nurse announced as she rushed past.

Maria handed the photo back to him as he put the chart down. "Thanks, I'll talk to you later," he said, moving around the desk.

"Yeah, bye," she replied as he headed for the elevator.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

When Jack got home he found Boone cooking in the kitchen, baby monitor attached to his belt, which was pretty much the perfect thing to come home to. He got a big smile from Boone as he entered the room which he returned without hesitation.

"Hey," Boone said. "Good day?"

"Yeah, I guess," Jack replied, leaning in for a kiss. "I'm glad I went back, it was the right thing."

"Good," Boone smiled.

"How about you?" Jack asked.

"I've been fine," he replied. "I've put Noah down for a nap but he'll probably be up before too long cos he's gonna want feeding."

"He's been okay?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, great," Boone replied. "He kept me company while I did the recycling and sorted out the CD collection and then we tried to do the crossword in the newspaper but we weren't so good at that so we just read the headlines instead."

Jack smiled. "Sounds like you guys had fun."

"Oh yeah," Boone nodded. "Tomorrow we're going grocery shopping, Noah's very excited about that."

"You are so damn cute, do you know that?" Jack told him. "I bet he loves you."

"Of course he loves me," Boone responded, giving Jack a winning smile.

"Right, who wouldn't?" Jack asked. He looked at Boone and he could see the sparkle in his eyes, which kind of made him wonder why he'd been getting in the way of Boone and Noah's relationship for so long, they were bound to get along fantastically, Boone was such a giving person and so eager to get on with everyone. Jack had a feeling he was going to be the boring parent in the mix, the bad cop to Boone's good cop, but he figured he could live with that. "It's nice to see you happy," Jack told him.

Boone smiled. "I've got a lot to be happy about right now."

"Good," Jack said. "And I'm gonna make sure you keep having stuff to be happy about."

"You are so sweet to me," Boone asserted.

"Not as consistently as I should be," Jack stated. "This right here is what you deserve. Don't get confused with all the times I get my priorities mixed up, okay? This is it, and I want you to call me on that if I start acting like an idiot again."

"Oh, I'm so gonna," Boone promised and Jack had a feeling that he meant it, which would certainly add a nice new dynamic to their relationship. Boone made it so very easy to walk all over him that Jack could never tell when he was under his feet.

"So, what's for dinner?" Jack asked.

"Chicken stir fry," Boone replied. "With my own special sauce."

"Sounds good," Jack replied, looking over the ingredients that Boone was preparing. He threw several things into the pan as delicious smells rose up, making Jack realise how hungry he was. He was just about to say something when Noah started crying through the baby monitor on Boone's waist.

Boone looked at him. "You wanna stir or you wanna get the baby?"

"I, erm," Jack tried to consider what the right answer was.

Boone sighed and rolled his eyes a little, turning his attention back to the dinner. "Go get him Jack," he told him. "You haven't seen him all day, I'd be going up there."

"Right, yeah," Jack agreed. "I just don't want to stand on anyone's toes."

"My toes are fine, Jack, go," Boone insisted. Jack nodded and headed towards the door. "Oh, Jack, you might wanna put him in his sling cos he's crying for his bottle and he won't quit 'til he gets it so it'll be easier to do if you put him in there," Boone instructed.

"Christ, one day and you've already got a system for everything," Jack commented with a smile, realising that it was just so Boone. Boone gave him a shrug and Jack headed to get Noah.

And Boone was, of course, right. So once Jack had sated Noah with his bottle he was happy to sit in his rocker chair while Jack and Boone enjoyed their dinner.

"You are a great cook," Jack commented. Boone smiled at him. "And you know exactly what you're doing with Noah. Not that you wouldn't but I'm starting to realise that I didn't."

"You knew what you were doing," Boone assured him. "You were just kind of spoiling him a little on top of that. Which is okay, but I just think this is better for all of us. Kid's need structure in their lives, I've been reading all this stuff about it, it makes them feel safe. Plus it's easier for us to be the ones in charge. And then there's that added bonus of alone time."

"Yeah, I like that one," Jack smiled.

"And anyway, it's not just about imposing stuff on him, it's about finding out his own patterns and making them work for you," Boone explained. "He wants to do certain things at certain times in a certain order, the two of you just have to come to a compromise about how things are gonna work."

Jack looked at him. "You found all this out in one day?"

"No," Boone replied. "I've been reading stuff since he was born. Since before he was born really. And I've been talking to Shannon about it a bunch of times too."

"But you didn't say anything?" Jack asked.

"I didn't want to butt in," Boone said. "You were the one in charge, you're always the one in charge, you're the leader. And I don't mean that like it's a bad thing, I need a leader."

"You don't sound like you need a leader to me," Jack pointed out. "You sound like you need to be given some space to prove yourself. Which you now have. Lots of space."

"But not too much space," Boone said, phrasing it like a suggestion.

"I am right here," Jack assured him. "Team mates, right?"

"Partners," Boone corrected.

"Right," Jack nodded. "Partners." 


	30. Chapter 30

Boone pushed the supermarket cart down the aisle, leaning down against the handle so he could talk to Noah in his baby seat. He picked up two types of desert and held them up to Noah.

"What are you thinking, cherry or chocolate?" He looked at Noah who stared back at him. "You're right, they both suck. I can make better stuff than this." He placed them back on the shelf and continued browsing lazily down the aisle. He turned to Noah. "What's your view on fresh cream? Too fattening?"

"He's really cute."

"Huh?" Boone asked, turning to face a rather attractive woman who was looking at Noah.

"Your baby, he's cute," she replied. "He is your baby, right?"

Boone turned back to Noah. "Oh, yeah, he's mine," he answered, giving Noah a smile.

"What's his name?"

Boone turned back to the woman and straightened himself up. "Noah. His name's Noah."

"Hi, Noah," she said, leaning down to him.

Boone couldn't help but give her a slightly bemused look. Why the hell was she talking to him? Did having a baby mean people had a free ticket to converse with him whenever they wanted?

"You must be a pretty great husband," she commented, turned back to face him. "Looking after the baby, doing the shopping. Lucky wife, huh?"

"Oh, I don't have a wife," Boone replied.

The woman raised her eyebrows a little. "Really?"

And Boone suddenly clicked why this woman was talking to him. So the baby thing really worked? He figured that was one of those stupid urban legends, why would a woman want to join a family already in progress? But, hey, if someone had told him this was effective when he was single he would have seriously considered borrowing a baby from someone.

"I'm gay," Boone said, cursing himself for how blunt that came out.

"Oh, okay," the woman replied, clearly a little unsure what to make of that.

"I'm not really gay," Boone found himself saying. "Well, I am. I'm bi. I have a boyfriend. I'm in a relationship. I have a baby."

"Yeah, so I see," she responded.

"Right, yeah, that's why you were talking to me," Boone nodded, kind of wishing the earth would swallow him up right now.

"Anyway, I'll let you get on," she said, making a move to leave.

"Yeah, bye," Boone smiled, hoping it didn't look too fake.

He watched her leave the aisle and then sighed heavily, leaning back down to Noah. "What do you have to go and be so cute for, making random girls wanna do me, huh?" Boone cooed at him. But then he realised exactly what he cooed and remembered his 'no sex talk in front of the baby' rule that he was so obsessed with and felt a little guilty. He reasoned that Noah wouldn't know what it meant when someone wanted to 'do' someone. But then Noah didn't even know what 'sex' meant anyway. Or 'dog' for that matter, so Boone was probably okay. Still, best not to get into bad habits, because the day would come when Noah would understand everything they said around him. "Don't tell Jack that I said that, okay? He'll rub it in my face and I'll never hear the end of it. Deal?"

Noah once again looked at him rather blankly.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes," Boone continued. He tickled Noah's stomach a little and placed a kiss on the top of his head before continuing down the aisle once again.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

When he got home, Boone placed Noah in his rocker chair in the kitchen so that he could put away the groceries. He leaned down to him, holding two stuffed toys.

"Now, I know it's getting near feeding time but I'm sure you'll let me know when you're feeling hungry so how about for now I put these groceries away and you can sit here and chill," he said. "But, I do have some friends to keep you company. So, do you want Mr. Rabbit?" he asked, holding up a stuffed rabbit. "Or do you want...?" He looked at the other toy. "Something that looks like no discernible animal." He turned the stuffed toy around to get a closer look at it. "Okay, I have no idea what that's supposed to be," he said, frowning. He tossed the toy to one side and held up the rabbit again. "I suggest you go with Mr. Rabbit personally. He looks like a friendly fellow, wouldn't you say?"

He danced the rabbit in front of Noah, watching the baby's eyes follow the stuffed animal. He smiled. "There's a book about rabbits called Watership Down," Boone told him. "I think it's probably a little beyond you right now but I'll read it to you when you get older. I think you'll like it. I used to love it when I was a kid. I still love it. Sawyer stole my copy. He did give it back though. Eventually. In a round about way. It was pretty wrecked though. But Jack bought me a new one. A really expensive hardback edition. But that one's too nice to read so I still read the paperback. And I'll read it to you. When you get older."

He smiled at Noah again, thinking about all the times they had ahead of them. All the years that Boone would have to show Noah all the things that he loved when he was little. Noah would probably hate them all of course, kids always seem to hate the stuff their parents liked. Boone considered himself fairly young and hip and down with it but he was sure that, when Noah got older, he'd just be another out of touch parent. Which didn't really bother him as much as he figured it might. In fact, nothing that he figured would scare him or exasperate him about parenthood really did. The pressure, the dependency, the sleepless nights, the responsibility, the dirty diapers, the loss of identity, the compromise of relationship... the list went on forever. But all he had to do was look at Noah and he couldn't even comprehend why any of those things would be a problem.

Boone sighed and shook his head a little, bringing himself out of his thoughts. "Okay, Mr. Rabbit it is then," he declared, placing the rabbit in the seat with Noah. "Now, I'm sure I don't need to tell you to yell if you need me, huh?" Boone smiled, placing another kiss on Noah's head. "I love you, okay?"

He turned around and headed over to the counter, starting to unpack the bags, and the thought kind of dawned on him that, yeah, he was a total housewife. But who cared? He was a happy housewife. And if he had to be a housewife there was no one he'd rather play the role for than Jack. What the hell did labels matter anyway? Who cared if he was Jack's lover or boyfriend or husband or wife? The point was that he was Jack's. And as for the mother/father debate, that was another one that he could spend forever worrying about if he wanted to but he found that he really didn't want to. Noah was his son, Noah was a Carlyle, a Carlyle with Jack's DNA, which made him the most special Carlyle that Boone had ever come across, and so who cared what Boone's label was? Boone was pretty much Boone, that's all Boone was and Boone was happy with that. He was Jack's Boone and he was Noah's Boone and, perhaps more importantly, he was Boone's Boone. He was exactly the Boone that he wanted to be. And who could ask for more in life than that?

He finished with the groceries and was just thinking about making a cup of coffee when Noah let him know it was time for his bottle. Boone smiled. "You have impeccable timing, you know that?" he asked, lifting Noah out of his seat. "You are just the best kid ever."

So he fed him, burped him, changed him and put him down for a nap. And as he placed Noah down and looked at his eyelids getting heavy he felt like everything was just fitting so well into place. When he was growing up he always felt like there was something missing, like there was something that should be there that wasn't. He thought that maybe it was because he was an only child and had no father figure but when Adam and Shannon came along, the feeling still wouldn't go away. So he figured that maybe he needed to fall in love. But Sapphire came and went and he never managed to find what he needed with her. And then, for the longest time, he thought that Shannon was what he needed to complete him. He thought that if she would just love him back then everything would be okay. But in retrospect he always knew he was kidding himself, looking for an easy fix. He spent years hating himself for these feelings of lust and it was all for nothing. She wasn't the one after all. Sydney proved that.

But now, now it was different. Now he felt like he'd found that missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle. He felt like he could see what everyone else saw, the reason that everyone else made living look so easy. There was no emptiness inside him, no hole that he felt the need to fill with destructive things, no hurting, no pain. He felt like a real person, like a regular guy. No secrets, no shame, no looking in the mirror and not feeling like he knew the person who was looking back. He felt like his life had come full circle and he was where he was supposed to be all along. He was where he belonged.

He placed a final kiss on Noah's head and went to make that coffee. 


	31. Chapter 31

"Jack, Mr. Lewton has another question about his surgery," Maria said, coming out of the patient's room. 

"Well, you can tell him to ask Dr. Bailey because I am out of here," Jack replied, heading for the doctor's lounge.

Maria followed him. "You're leaving?" she asked.

"I finish at six, it is now," he looked at his watch, "six oh seven, I'm going home. I signed my patients out to Dr. Bailey, he's up on everything, go talk to him."

Maria looked at him as he opened his locker and took out his stuff. He turned to face her. "What?"

She shook her head a little. "Nothing," she said. "It's just you're usually kind of thorough."

"Yeah, and I thoroughly explained to Dr. Bailey the condition of each of my parents," Jack replied. "I have better things to do than stay here all night."

Maria smiled a little. "Well, glad to hear to it."

Jack put on his coat and closed his locker. "I'll catch you tomorrow," he said, heading out of the room.

Maria once again walked with him. "I'm day off tomorrow."

"Right, Thursday then," he said, heading to the elevator.

"Have fun," she smiled, going in search of Dr. Bailey.

When Jack got home he found Boone in the living room, feeding Noah. He could smell something delectable coming from the kitchen. "Hey," he said, leaning down to give Boone a kiss.

"Hey," Boone smiled back at him.

"Dinner smells good," Jack commented, taking a seat. Boone just sent a little shrug and smile his way. Jack was officially the luckiest guy in the world. He got to go out to a job that he loved, knowing that his baby was in the most capable hands ever, and then go home to said baby and aforementioned hands, belonging to the best boyfriend anyone could ever wish for. This was all so much better than Jack could ever have dreamed of.

When he and Sarah got married, she had made it very clear that she wasn't going to be a housewife and she had no intention of cooking for him and cleaning up his mess. And when she got pregnant she stated that there was no way she was going to be one of those stay at home mothers who forewent their own lives. She spent too long not being able to do anything during the physiotherapy and now she planned on taking full advantage of the use of her legs.

Boone, admittedly, made the same claim about being a housewife. But to him it wasn't about actually doing the things that a housewife did so much as having the label 'housewife' hanging around his neck. But whatever it was that Boone wanted to be called, he fit into the role perfectly and he'd never looked happier. And Boone _wanted_ to stay at home with Noah, he really did, and Jack couldn't imagine anything that would give him better peace of mind while he was at work.

And Boone couldn't half run a household. And he may think he needs someone to take care of him and keep him on the right track but Jack knew that when it came down to it, Boone was a protective guy and he was always looking out for the interests of others. And Jack was beginning to realise that when he stopped doing everything for Boone, Boone was more than capable of picking up the slack. In fact Boone seemed to quite like picking up the slack. As much as he exuded a feeling of someone that wanted to be wrapped up in cotton wool, Jack could tell that this new equal opportunities relationship they were finally embarking on was really working out for both of them. They both naturally tried to help people and look after them and so now they could look after each other but also fell safe in the knowledge it was two-way. No dependency or possession. Equals.

After dinner, Jack put Noah down to sleep and went to find Boone in the living room. He was sat on the sofa, looking at the digital planner. Jack went to sit beside him, close enough to make their thighs touched.

"There's a documentary about the rain forest on," Boone said. "You wanna watch it?"

"I was kind of hoping you might want an early night, actually," Jack said, leaning in closer to him.

But Boone being Boone, hints just weren't going to do it. "You tired?" he asked, turning to face Jack.

Jack gave him an amused look. "No." He placed a hand on Boone's thigh and slowly slid it upwards. When he reached the crotch, Boone bit his lip a little.

"Okay," he said. "I don't care about the rain forest anyway."

Jack leaned in and kissed him long and deep, moving his hand a little to cause some friction but really just teasing. Boone fidgeted a little and grabbed the side of his face, pulling him in closer. After about a minute of this Jack pulled away.

"Bedroom?" he suggested.

"Uh-huh," Boone mumbled as they both climbed to their feet.

Jack took his time undressing Boone, kissing and touching and teasing any bit of skin he could get to. He was just getting to the good bit when Noah started to cry. Jack closed his eyes, admittedly a little frustrated, and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes again and looked down at Boone.

"Do you think he really wants anything or can we just leave him to it?" he asked.

Boone looked amused. "Jack..."

"Hang on a sec," he said, listening to the tone of Noah's cry for a beat. "I'd say that's dirty diaper." Boone nodded, trying to hide a smile. "You already knew that, didn't you?" Boone nodded again, not bothering to mask the smile this time. "Of course you did, you're superdad."

"Just get off me so I can go change him," Boone instructed, trying to give Jack a push but he wasn't moving.

"Uh-uh," Jack said shaking his head. "You stay here, I'll be right back." He climbed out of bed and grabbed his robe. "Hold that thought, though, okay? Cos when I get back we're picking up right where we left off," he told him.

Boone smiled at him. "I hope so."

Jack gave him a smile in return and headed into the nursery. He could so handle fatherhood and still be a good boyfriend. Kids might not like to think of their parents having sex but Jack knew that they did and why should he be the exception to the rule. Maybe it wasn't going to be as easy for them as it was before, as evidenced by this slight detour in the evenings plans, but Jack and Boone were both used to adapting. Two and a half years on an island teaches you about adjustment if nothing else. So Jack had a few more things in his life right now. That was okay. He could learn to juggle.

So he changed Noah's diaper, settled him back down, and then finished what he'd started with Boone.


End file.
